#specifically because I designed her then immediately changed my mind on how I want to draw her 15 million times

[ewwww-what]

Do you think it’s possible that my god is Kristen?

[felikatze]

ISAT and Ludonarrative Harmony: Combat is a Storytelling Tool

Or: How Siffrin is stuck in the endgame grind, forever

Please Note: This is primarily aimed at an audience that already played In Stars and Time, because I am bad at explaining things, and it's good to already know what the fuck I'm talking about. I tend to only bring up game elements as I want to talk about them.

Spoilers for.... all of ISAT! Especially Act 5!

(image to show how i feel posting this and as an attention grabber over my wall of text)

To pull a definition of ludonarrative harmony out of a hat, game writer Lauryn Ash defines it as follows:

Ludonarrative harmony is when gameplay and story work together to create a meaningful and immersive experience. From a design implementation perspective, it is the synchronized interactions between in-game actions (mechanics) and in-world context (story).

It is, generally speaking, how well game mechanics work hand in hand with the story. I, personally, think ISAT is an absolute masterclass of it, so I want to take a look at how ISAT specifically uses its battle system to emphasize Siffrin's character arc and create organic story moments. I want you to keep this in mind when I talk here.

So, skills, right? If you've played any turn-based RPG, you know your Fire spells, your "BACKSLASH! AIRSLASH! BACKSLASH!" and the many ways to style those.

Well, what does casting "Fire" say about your character? Not all that much, does it? Perhaps you'll have typical divisions. The smart one is the mage, the big brawny one is your tank, the petite one's the healer. And that's the barebones of ISAT's main party, but it's much more than that.

Every character's style of combat tells you something about them. Odile, the Researcher, is the most well-travelled and knowledgable of the bunch. She's the one with the expertise to keep a cool head and analyze the enemy, yet also able to use all three of the Rock-Paper-Scissors craft types.

To reflect her analytical view of things, all her skill names are just descriptive, the closest to your most bog-standard RPG. "Slow IV" or "Paper III" serve well to describe their purpose. The high number of the skills gives the impression there were three other Slow skills beforehand - fitting, considering the party starts at level 45, about to head into the final dungeon. She's also the oldest, so she's the slowest of the bunch.

Isabea, the Fighter, has all his skills in exclamation points. "YOUR TURN!!!" "SO WEAK!!!" "SMASH!!!" they're straightforward, but excited. He's a purposefully cheerfull guy, so his skills revolve around cheering on his allies. He's absolutely pumped to be here, and you see that from his skill names alone.

Mirabelle, the Housemaiden, is an interesting case. She's by all means the true protagonist of this tale - She's the one "Chosen by the Change God," the only one who survived the King's first attack, the only one immune to his ability to freeze time, the only dual-craft type of the game - just a lot of things. And her skill names reflect that facade she puts on herself - she can do this, she can win! She has to believe it, or else she starts doubting. This is how you get "Jolly Round Rondo" and "Mega Sparkle Heal" or "Adorable Moving Cure." She's styled every bit a sailor scout shojo heroine, and her moveset replicates the naming conventions of "In the name of the moon, I'll punish you!"

Even Bonnie, the Kid, who can't be controlled in combat, has named craft skills. And they very much reflect that Bonnie is, well, a kid. "Wolf Speed Technique" or "Thousand Blows Technique" are very much the phrasings of a child who learned one complicated word and now wants to use it in everything to seem cooler than they are, which is none, because they're twelve.

Siffrin's skills are all puns.

You have an IMMEDIATE feel for personality here. Between "Knife to Meet You!" and "Too Cleaver by Half," you know Siffrin's the type to always crack a joke no matter the situation, slinging witticisms around to put Sonic the Hedgehog to shame. It's just such a clever way to establish character using a game mechanic as old as the entire history of RPGs.

This is only the baseline of the way the combat system feeds into the story, though.

The timeloop, of course, feeds into it. Siffrin is the only character who retains experience upon looping, whereas all other characters are reset to their base level and skills. And it sucks (affectionate).

You're extremely likely to battle more often the earlier in the game you are - after all, you need the experience (for now.) Every party member contributes, and Siffrin isn't all that strong on their own, since they focus on raw scissor type damage with the addition of one speed buff. (Of course it's a speed buff. They're a speedy fucker. Just look at him).

At first, the difference in level between Siffrin and the rest of the group is rather negligible. Just a level or two. Just a bit more speed and attack. And then Siffrin grows further and further apart. Siffrin keeps learning new skills. He gets a healing skill that doubles as an attack boost, taking away from both Mirabelle's and Isabeau's usefullness. He gets Craft skills of every type that even give you two jackpot points instead of one - thus obliterating Odile's niche. Siffrin turns into a one-person army capable of clearing most encounters all on their own.

Siffrin's combat progression is an exact mirror of story progression - as their experience inside the loops grows, they also grow further and further away from their party. The party seems... weaker, slower, clumsier. Always back at their starting point, just as all of their character arcs are reset each loop. Never advancing, always stagnant. And you have Siffrin as the comparison post right next to them.

I also want to point out here a change from Act 2 to Act 3 - Siffrin's battle portrait. He stops smiling.

Battles keep getting easier. This is true both for the reason that Siffrin keeps growing stronger even when all enemies stay the same, but also for the reason that you, the player, learn more about the battle system and the various encounters, until you've learned perfect boss clear strategies just from repetition. Have you ever watched a speedrunner play Pokemon? They've played this game so many times, they could do it blindfolded and sleeping. Your own knowledge and Siffrin's new strength work in tandem to trivialize the game's entire combat system as the game progresses.

(Is it still fun? Playing it over, and over, and over again? Is it?)

You and Siffrin are in sync, your experience making everything trivial.

As time goes on, Siffrin grows to care less and less about performing right for their party and more and more about going fast. A huge moment in his character is marked by the end of Act 3; because of story events I won't delve too deeply into, Siffrin has grown afraid of trying something new. And his options of escape are closing in. They need an answer, and they need it fast. He doesn't have the time or patience to dumb himself down, so you unlock one new skill.

It doesn't occur with level up, or with a quest, or anything at all. At the start of Act 4, it simply appears in Siffrin's Craft skills.

(Just attack.)

No pun. No joke. Just attack. Once you notice, the effect is immediate - here you have it, a clear sign of how jaded Siffrin has become, right at every encounter. And it's a damn good attack, too! The only available attack in the game that deals "massive" damage against all enemies. Because it doesn't add any jackpot points (at least, it's not supposed to), you set up a combo with everybody else, but Siffrin simply tears away at the enemy with wild abandon. Seperated from the rest of the party by the virtue of no longer needing to contribute to team attacks (most of the time. It's still useful if they do, though).

Once again, an aspect of the battle system enhances the degree of separation between Siffrin and the static characters of his play. You're incentivized to separate him, even.

Additionally, there are two more skills to learn. They're the only skills that replace previous skills. You only get them at extremely high levels, the latter of which I didn't even reach on both of my playthroughs.

The first, somewhere in the level 70 range, Rose Printed Glasses, a paper type craft skill, is replaced by Tear You Apart. It's still a pun about paper, but remarkedly more vicious.

The second is even more on the nose. At level 80, In A While, Rockodile!, a rock type craft skill, is replaced by the more powerful Rock Bottom.

I didn't get to level 80. If you do, you pretty much have to do it on purpose. You have to keep going much longer than necessary, as Siffrin is just done. And the last skill he learns is literally called Rock Bottom.

What do I even need to say, really.

Your party doesn't stay static forever, though.

By doing their hangout quests, side quests throughout the loops that result in Siffrin and the character having a heart to heart, all of them unlock what I'd call an "ultimate" skill. You know the type - the character achieved self-fulfillment, hit rank 10 on their confidant, maxed out their skill tree, and received a reward for their trouble.

These skills are massively useful. My favorite is Odile's - it makes one enemy weak to all Craft types for several turns, which basically allows you to invalidate the first and third boss, as well as just clown on the King, especially once Siffrin starts racking up damage.

But the thing is. In Act 3, when you first get them, yeah, they're useful. But... do you need them? After all, they're such a hassle to get. You need to do the whole character quest again, you can't loop forward in the House or you'll lose them. If you want to take these skills to the King, you need to commit. Go the full nine-yards and be nice to your friends and not die and not skip forward or skip back. Which is annoying, right?

Well, I sure did think so during Act 4. After all, a base level party can still defeat the King, just with a few more tricky pieces involved. Siffrin can oneshot almost all basic enemies by the time of Act 4. It's this exact evalutation that you, the player, go through everytime you return to Dormont. Do I want this skill, still? Would it not be faster to go on without it? I'm repeating myself, but that's the thing! That's what Siffrin is thinking, too!

I also want to take a quick moment to note, here - all skills gained from hangouts have art associated with them, which no other skills do. This feature, the nifty art, hammers home these as "special" skills, besides just how they're unlocked.

Siffrin also has one skill with associated art.

Yeah, you guessed it, it's (Just attack.)

At first, helping the characters is tied to a hefty in-game reward, but that reward loses its value, and in return devalues helping Siffrin's friends every loop. It's too tedious for a skill that'll make a boss go by one turn faster. You, the player, grow jaded with the battle system. Grinding experience isn't worth it, everybody's highest levels are already recorded. Fighting bosses isn't worth it, it's much faster to loop forward.

Isn't this what all endgame in video games looks like? You already beat the final boss, and now... what challenge is left? Is there a point to keep playing? Most games will have some post-game content. A superboss to test your skills against, but ISAT doesn't have any of that. You're forever left chasing to the post-game. That's the whole point - to escape the game.

As most games get more difficult as time passes, ISAT only gets easier. The game becomes disinterested in expanding its own mechanics just as I ran out of new things to fight after 100%-ing Kingdom Hearts 3. Every encounter becomes a simple game of "press button to win."

The final boss just takes that one up a notch.

Spoilers for Act 5 ahead boys!

In Act 5, Siffrin utterly loses it. His last possible hope for escape failed him, told him there's nothing she can do, and Siffrin is trapped for eternity. So of course, they go insane and run up the entire House without their party.

This just proves what you already knew - you dont need the party to proceed. Siffrin alone is strong enough. And here, Siffrin has entirely shed the facade of the jokester they used to be. Every single skill now follows the (Just attack.) naming conventions. Your skills are: (Paper.) (Rock.) (Scissors.) (Breathe.)

To the point. Not a moment wasted, because Siffrin can't take a moment longer of any of this. Additionally, his level is set to 99 and his equipment becomes fixed. You can't even pick up items anymore! Not that you needed them at this point anyway, right? Honestly, I never used any items besides the Salty Broth since Act 2, so I stopped picking items up a long time ago. Now you just literally can't.

Something I've not talked about until now - one of the main equipment types in this game are Memories, gained for completing subquests or specific interactions and events. They all by and large have little effects - make Odile's tonics heal more, or have Mirabelle cast a shield at the start of combat. For the hangout events, you also gain an associated memory that boosts the characters' stats by 30. It lets them keep up with Siffrin again! A fresh wind! Finally, your party members feel on par with you again!

...For a time. And just like that, they're irrelevant again, just as helping them gave Siffrin a brief moment of hope that the power of friendship could fix everything.

In Act 5, your memory is set to "Memory of Emptiness." It allows you to loop back in the middle of combat. You literally can't die anymore. Not that Siffrin could've died by this point in the first place, unless you forgot about the King's instant-kill attack. This one memory takes away the false pretense that combat ever had any stakes. Siffrin's level being set to 99 means even the scant exp you get is completely wasted on them. All stakes and benefits from combat have been removed. It has become utterly pointless.

Frustrating, right? It's an artistic frustration, though. It traps you right here in Siffrin's shoes, because he hates that all these blinding Sadnesses are still walking around just as much. It all inspires just a tiny fraction of that deep rolling anger Siffrin experiences here in the player.

And listen, it was cathartic, that one time Siffrin snapped and stabbed the tutorial Sadness, wasn't it? Because who enjoys sitting through the tutorial that often? Siffrin doesn't. I don't, either.

So, since combat is an useless obstacle now meant to inspire frustration, what do you do for a boss? You can't well make it a gameplay challenge now, no. The bosses of Act 5 are an emotional challenge: a painful wait.

First, Siffrin fights the King, alone. This is already nervewracking because of one factor - in every other run, you need Mirabelle's shield skill, or else you're scripted to die. You're actually forced to fight the King multiple times in Act 3, and have to do it at least once in Act 4, though you'll likely do it more. Point is: you know how this fight works.

You know Siffrin's fight is doomed from the outset, but all you can do is keep slinging attacks. Siffrin is enough of a powerhouse to take the King's HP down, what with the healing and buff skills they have now, not to even mention you can just go all in on damage and then loop back.

(And no matter which way you play it, whether you just loop or use strategically, it reflects on Siffrin, too. Has he grown callous enough not even death will stop their mission? Or does he still avoid pain, as much as he can?)

This fight still allows you the artifice of even that much choice, not that it matters. The other shoe drops eventually - Siffrin becomes slower, and slower. Unsettling, considering this game works on an Action Gauge system. You barely get turns anymore. The screen gets darker, and darker. Until Siffrin is frozen in time, just as you knew he had to be, because you know how this encounter works, know it can't be cleared without Mirabelle.

And, then, a void.

Siffrin awakens to nothingness. The only way to tell you've hit a wall is if Siffrin has no walking animation to match your button inputs. You walk, and walk, until you're approached by.... you. The next enemy encounter of the game, and Siffrin's absolute lowest point: Mal Du Pays.

Or, "Homesickness," in english. If you know the game, you know why it's named this, but that's not the point at the moment.

Thing is, where you could damage the King and are damaged in turn, giving you at least a proper combat experience, even if its doomed to fail, Mal Du Pays has no such thing.

You can attack. You can defend. But it is immune to all attacks. And in return, it does nothing. It's common, at least, for undefeatable enemies to be a "survive" challenge, but nope. The entire fight is "press button and wait." Except, remember the previous fight against the King? The entire time, you were waiting for the big instant death attack to drop. That feeling, at least for me, carried forward. I was incredibly on edge just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And, as is a pattern, Siffrin is, too. As Siffrin's attacks fail to connect, they start talking to Mal Du Pays.

But he gets no response, as you get no attacks to strategize around. The wait for anything to happen is utterly agonizing. You and Siffrin are both waiting for something to happen. This isn't a fight. It just pretends to be. It's an utter rugpull, because Siffrin was so undefeatable for most of Act 4 and all of Act 5 so far. It's kind of terrifying!

and it does. It finally does something. Ma Du Pays speaks, in the voice of Siffrin's friends, listing out their deepest fears. I think it's honestly fantastic. You're forced to just sit here and listen to Siffrin's deepest doubts, things you know the characters could not say because it references the timeloops they're all utterly unaware of. This is all Siffrin, talking to himself. And all you, all Siffrin, can do, is keep wailing away on the enemy to no effect whatsoever.

So of course this ends with Siffrin giving up. What else can you do?

And then Siffrin's friends show up and unfreeze them and it's all very cool yay. The pure narrative scenes aren't really the main focus but I want to point out here:

A) Mirabelle is in the first party slot here, referencing how she's the de facto protagonist, and Bonnie fills in the fourth slot left empty, which shows all characters uniting to save Siffrin

B) this is the only instance of the other party members having act specific battle icons: they're all smiling brightly, further pushed by the upbeat music

C) the reflecting shield Mirabelle uses to freeze the King uses a variation of her hangout skill cut in, marking it as her true "final" skill and giving the whole fight a more climatic feeling.

It's also a short gameplay sequence with Siffrin utterly uninvolved in the battle. You can't even see them onscreen. But... it feels warm, doesn't it? Everybody coming together. Siffrin doesn't have to fight anymore.

At last, the King is defeated. Siffrin and co. make for the Head Housemaiden, to have her look at Siffrin's sudden illness. Siffrin is utterly exhausted, famished, running a fever. And this isn't unexpected - after all, their skills in Act 5 had no cooldown. For context, instead of featuring any sort of MP system, all skills work on a cooldown basis, where a character can't use it for a certain number of turns. The lowest cooldown is actually Siffrin's Knife to Meet You, which has a cooldown of 1. In universe, this is reasoned as the characters needing a break from spamming craft in order to not exhaust themselves.

Siffrin's skills in Act 5 having no cooldown/being infinitely spammable isn't a sign of their strength - it's a sign that he refuses to let himself rest in order to rush through as fast as possible.

Moving on, Siffrin panics when seeing the Head Housemaiden, because seeing her means one thing: the end. Prior to this in the game, every single time you beat the King, the loop ends when you talk to the Head Housemaiden.

Reality breaks down, the whole shebang. It's here that Siffrin realizes - they don't want the loops to end, because the end of their journey means their family will leave, and he'll be alone again. The happiest time of his life will be over.

Siffrin goes totally ballistic, to say the least.

As it turns out (and was heavily foreshadowed narratively), Siffrin has been using Wish Craft to subconciously cause the timeloop because of their abandonment issues. It's rather predictable if you paid attention to literally anything, but it's extremely notable how heavily Siffrin is paralleled to the King, the antagonist they swore to kill by themself at the start of Act 5. The King wants to freeze Vaugarde in time because it is, in his mind, "perfect," for accepting him after he lost his home - a backstory he shares with Siffrin.

Siffrin has become the exact antagonist he swore to kill, and it's shown by how the next fight utterly flips everything on its head.

Siffrin is the final boss.

In a towering form made of stars, Siffrin looks down at their friends. His face is terrified, because of his internal conflict; he can't hurt his friends, but he can't let them go, either. The combat prompt is simply changed to "END IT!"

This fight is similar to the previous, in that you just need to wait a certain number of turns until its over. However, this time, it's not dreadful suspense. It's... confusion, and hesitance.

You have two options for combat: Attack your friends, or attack yourself.

And... you don't really want to do either, I think. I certainly don't. But what else can you do? It's Siffrin's desires clashing in full force. Attack your friends, and force them to stay? Or attack yourself, and let them go safely without you?

Worth noting, here - when you attack Siffrin's friends, you can't harm them. Isabeau will shield all attacks. And when you attack yourself, Mirabelle will heal you back to full. And the friends don't... do anything, either. How could they? Occasionally, Mirabelle heals you and Isabeau shouts words of motivation, but the main thing is...

(Your friends don't know what to do.)

None of them want to harm Siffrin. Both sides simply stare at each other, resolute in their conviction but unwilling to end it with violence. It's of note that this loop, the last one, is the only loop where the King isn't killed. Just frozen. And now here is Siffrin, clamoring for the same eternity the King was. Of course everything ends in a tearfilled conversation as Siffrin sees their friends won't leave him, even after the journey ends, but I still have to appreciate this moment.

Siffrin is directly put in the position with their friends as his enemies, forced to physically reckon that keeping them in this loop is an act of violence, against both their friends, and against himself.

It's a happy ending. But... what does it mean?

Of course, ISAT is obviously about the fear of change. Siffrin is afraid of the journey ending, and of being alone. However, ISAT is also a game about games. Siffrin is playing the same game, over and over, because it's comforting. It's familiar. It's nice, to know exactly what happens next. These characters might just be predictable lines of dialogue, but... they feel like friends. Have you ever played a game, loved it, put countless hours into it, but you never finished it? Because you just couldn't bear to see it end? For the characters to leave your life, for there to be a void in your heart where the game used to be?

After all, maybe it became part of your routine! You play the game every day, slowly chipping away at it for weeks at a time. For me, I beat ISAT in four days. It utterly consumed me during this time. I had 36 hours of playtime by the end. Yeah, in that week, I did not do much more than play ISAT.

And once i beat it, i beat it, again. I restarted the game to see the few scenes I missed, most specifically the secret boss I won't talk about here. I... couldn't let go of the game yet. I wanted to see every scrap I could. I still do. I'm writing this, in part because I still do. It's scary to let go.

Ever heard the joke term of "Postgame Depression?" It's when you just beat a game, and you're suddenly sad. Maybe because the ending affected you emotionally and you need to process the feelings it invoked, or you search for something that can now fill your time with it gone.

The game ends, for real this time, the last time you talk to the Head Housemaiden. But Siffrin gets... scared. What if everything loops back again? And so, his family offers to hold his hand. They face the end, together.

For all loops, including the ending, you never see what happens after. After they leave the loop for good. Because the loop is the game itself. It's asking you to trust that life goes on for these characters, and it holds your hand as it asks you to let go. There's a reason for Siffrin's theater metaphors. He is the actor, and the director, asking everyone to do it over one more time. He's a character within the game, and its player.

There's a reason I talked about endgame content. This, the way it all repeats, there's nothing new, difficulty and stakes bleed away as you snap the game over your knee - it's my copy of White 2 with two hundred hours in it. It's me playing Fire Emblem Awakening in under 3 hours while skipping every cutscene. Are you playing for the sake of play, for the sake of indulging in your memories, because you're afraid of the hole it'll leave when you stop?

Of note: the narrative never condemns Siffrin for unwittingly causing their own suffering. He's a victim of circumstance. It's seen as endearing, even, that Siffrin loves their friends to the point of rather seeing the world destroyed than them gone. But Siffrin is also told: we'll stay with you for now, but we'll part ways eventually. And one day, you'll have to be okay with it.

Stop draining the things you love of every ounce of enjoyment just because you're afraid of what happens next. I'm not saying to never play your favorite games again. Playing ISAT a second time, I still had a lot of fun! I saw so many new things I didn't before, and I enjoyed myself immensely, reading the same dialogue over and over. But... it makes me look at other games I love and still play, and makes me ask... is this still fun? Do I still need to play this game to enjoy it? Even writing this is an afterimage of my enjoyment, but it's a new way to interact with the game, to analyze it through this lens. Fuck, man, I write fanfiction. Look at me.

All of this, fanart, fanfic, analysis, is a way to prolong that enjoyment without making yourself suffer for it. Without just going through the motions of enjoyment without actually experiencing any. But one day, the thing you love won't be fun to talk and write and draw about. And it's okay. You'll have new things to love. I promise.

In the end.... I'm certain I'll replay ISAT one day. Between great writing, art, puzzles and unresolved mysteries, it's my shoe-in for game of the year.

But I won't replay it for quite some time. I've had enough, for now, so I let my love take other forms.

Siffrin is never condemned, because love is no evil. Be it love for another person, or for a game. And please, if you're overempathetic - it's still a game, at the end of the day. The great thing about games is that you can always boot them up again, no matter how long its been.

A circle within a circle indeed.

To summarize:

The repetitiveness of ISAT's combat, lack of new enemies, and Siffrin's ever increasing strength eventually allows you to snap the combat over your knee, rendering it irrelevant and boring. Though this may seem counterproductive at first, it perfectly mirrors how Siffrin has also grown bored with these repeated encounters and views them only as an obstacle to get past. The reflection of Siffrin's own tiredness with the player's annoyance increases the compassion the player has for Siffrin as a character.

Additionally, the endgame state of the combat system serves as commentary on the state of a favorite game played too often, much like how Siffrin has unwittingly trapped themself in the loop. Despite the game having no more challenge or content left to over, a player might return to their favorite game anyway, solely to try and recreate the early experience of actually having fun with it. This ties into ISAT's metanarrative about the fear of change and refusal to let go of comfort even when the object (here, your favorite video game) offering that comfort has become utterly bereft of any substance to actually engage with. Playing for the sake of playing, with no actual investment to keep going besides your own memories.

Later on, stripping away even the pretense of strategy for a "press button and wait" format of final bosses highlights the lack of options at Siffrin's disposal and truly forces the player into their shoes. Truly, the only way to win is to stop playing.

[notmaplemable]

Mable's RWBY Redo: Volume 1 + Trailers

Hello hello, and welcome to my own version of FRWBY, but hopefully without the controversy. But I wouldn't really call this a "fix it" fic or anything. More just a writing exercise where RWBY was more planned out than it actually was/is.

Since it does seem to me that RWBY was written quite a bit by the seat of CRWBY's pants, at least in the earlier volumes. How much that changed, I don't claim to know. But there are a few things in RWBY that probably would've more impactful if they were setup earlier. So, I'm going to try to do that.

I will be keeping most of the major concepts of RWBY the same. Dust, Grimm, impractical but flashy weaponry, the White Fang and that whole thing, Salem, etc. But just because I'm keeping the concept, doesn't mean there won't be changes in execution.

There are also a few things that where the plan seems to have shifted at some point. Like the Raven plotline for example, it seems like Monty was the only one who really knew what he planned to do with that. So I might be willing to go a bit more "off the rails" with that specifically and a few other things.

I'm also going to try to keep in mind the resources RT would've had at the time of each volume. So I won't be immediately changing things to 22 minute episodes with 16 episodes a season or something like that.

I am, mostly, going to be taking an episode by episode approach to this. Though I don't really have any experience with screen writing or what you can fit into a certain amount of runtime. So I'm not going to write out all the dialogue and things for most scenes. Just giving summaries and a few scenes of particular importance.

Though I think here would be a good time to respond to a few comments something like this might get.

No, I don't think I could've done better than CRWBY. No, I don't hate RWBY, I rather love it. No, I'm not going to sideline RWBY for a bunch of "straight white male" characters. No, I'm not going to erase all the LGBT representation. Yada yada yada. If you don't want to read something like this, you are more than welcome to block me or whitelist the tag. This is more or less just a fun writing exercise for me.

I'm doing the ships I want though.

So with that said, let's hop right in.

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Trailers

The red and yellow trailers will be completely unchanged.

The white and black trailers will be unchanged as far as what happens in each trailer.

For the white trailer, the change won't really be to the trailer itself, but more so something that changes things post fall of beacon. The arma gigas fight didn't actually happen and that's not how Weiss got her scar. Why? One fan fic had her get the scar a different way and I like it more than the canon way.

That's really it.

For the black trailer, Blake's design is the only thing that's changing. Now, it's not going to be a complete redesign. Mostly because introducing the rest of RWBY but Blake with their canon outfits would kind of be weird and require a good bit of extra work. I'd imagine at least.

So I'm just going to have her not wear the bow, and with shorter hair. Not quite what she had in Atlas though, probably something closer to Kali's actually. And add some white fluff to her inner cat ears to make them a bit less... flat.

Now, that does remove the dramatic reveal that she's a faunus for the audience. But I think the dramatic irony of only the audience knowing that can make up for it. And the hair can be a bit of a rough signifier of how long between the black trailer and her appearance in V1 was.

And just for the in universe logic of Blake not looking exactly the same if she thinks Adam is going to be coming after her. It's not much of a change, but it is a change.

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Volume 1

I'm not going episode by episode in V1, since there really isn't that much I want to change. But I will be shortening to the volume to 10 episodes instead of 16. With the volume ending after "Players and Pieces" with 2 more episodes added to initiation. Which I imagine will mostly just be added action and maybe some conversation.

The first major change is going to be that Jaune still doesn't have his aura unlocked, but he knows what aura is. Or, at least the 5 minutes of research on Remnant's version of google's version of what aura is. He's gonna be looking for a way to have it unlocked. Maybe add in a throwaway like where he wonders to himself if he should ask Ruby to do it.

The second major change is actually something we aren't going to see. The reason why Blake decided to make Yang her partner, since she does seem to purposely seek Yang out in canon but we never really hear the reason. But honestly I can't think of a good enough reason at the moment besides Yang knowing Blake's secret. So we'll just save that for a flashback later and have it implied there was a deeper reason for now.

Everything else pre-initiation should be the same.

Once we get to the cliffs before everything starts, CRDL will not be there. Since we aren't doing jaunedice yet there's no reason to have them yet. We'll also have it stated that there are multiple launch sites and have Ozpin say something along the lines of "of the 200 of you that will go into the forest today, only 50 of you will pass," to give us more of an idea of the size of the class. Though the numbers can be changed to whatever.

Then things get started, everyone partners up, Ren doesnt kill a king taijitu because power scaling. We see Ruby and maybe a few others cutting through the unarmored beowolves, adolescent beowolves to be precise, with relative ease and start to struggle once the armored ones start showing up. To help with the power scaling a bit.

Jaune convinces Pyrrha to help "boost" his aura so he can heal faster. Pyrrha knows that's not how that works but goes along with it anyways. With her having some suspicions of Jaune, but not confronting him about it since... you know.

Everything else in initiation should be pretty much the same. Maybe with an extra fight scene or two. Ruby and Jaune are still named leaders. But we do get a small scene afterwards with both teams heading to their dorms which are of course, right across the hall from each other.

So, a bit after sundown the two teams go into their dorms, with Ruby and Jaune deciding to stay out for a second for a quick chat.

------

The two new leaders stand in front of their dorms, neither of them saying a word for a moment before Jaune decided to speak.

Jaune: You running up that that cliffside to kill that giant bird grimm was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Ruby: You mean the Evermore? *Jaune nods* Well, it was nothing really... I just saw an opportunity and took it. You know?

Jaune: I guess.

Ruby: But your team took down the Deathstalker, right? I bet that was super cool too.

Jaune: Everyone else did all the work. I kind of just stood there hiding behind my shield.

Ruby: But Pyrrha said you were the one who figured out how to take it down.

Jaune: Yeah, but-

Ruby: No buts! Besides, a good plan can be the difference between life and death sometimes. At least that's what my Uncle Qrow says.

Ruby: That's probably why Professor Ozpin made you a leader.

Jaune: *Rub the back of his head* Yeah... Heh, maybe he made you a leader since you're so good a pep talks.

Ruby: I guess...

JR: ...

Ruby: ...We've been training most of our lives to fight Grimm and bad guys. Maybe learning how to be leaders won't be so hard, right?

Jaune: ...Right.

*RWBY's dorm door opens*

Yang: Hey, Rubes, what are you still doing out here?

Ruby: Just talking to Jaune.

Yang: *Looks at Jaune* Vomit Boy.

Jaune: Can you please not call me that?

Yang: Not until you unruin my boots. *Turns back to Ruby* Now come on, we need our leader, and my favorite little sister, to pick who gets the bed closest to the bathroom.

Ruby: Oh, okay. I'll see you tomorrow Jaune.

Jaune: *smiles* Have a good night, Ruby.

Ruby: *Goes into her dorm with Yang*

Jaune: *Soon after Ruby shuts her dorm door Jaune's smile turns into a look of pure guilt as he stands silent in the dimly lit hallway*

Roll credits

------

And that's the end of volume 1. Not sure when I'll get to the next volume, but it'll be sometime soon. V2 should be more detailed, and will probably end up being longer than one post.

So yeah, tell me what you think and I'll see you next time.

[untitled5071]

Could you possibly do a piece where Creature refuses to burn her and they find an alternate way to escape?

So I don't have a forensics degree or any real knowledge about this kind of stuff, but I hope this is serviceable (and thanks to @ceasarslegion for the extensive knowledge). Enjoy!

(EDIT: My stupid ass forgot that wisdom teeth removal was a thing and Lisa would definitely be the kind to keep hers so I hope you don't mind a little post-publishing edit, but I've decided to change the method of DNA she left behind, otherwise I would be really mad at myself. I hope that's okay with you guys, enjoy the new version!)

🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦🪦

“I told you, I don't think there's any other way. They're going to find us soon, we don't have much time.”

Lisa wasn't even sure her new husband could hear her with how vehemently he was shaking his head, his still sweat-damp locks flapping around his face as he refused as passionately as he could. They were standing in her bedroom, where she had just finished telling him her plan of going out with a bang–or rather, a spark–by killing herself via the faulty tanning bed in the shed so she could escape the consequences of the three murders her and her creature had committed over the past few days.

Though she was mostly content in the plan, he was very much against it, as evidenced by the continued nonverbal refusal. She reached out to stop him by cupping his cheek in her hand, and he immediately softened with a quiet whimper, obviously still reeling over the fact that she was willing to touch him so freely and tenderly now.

She gazed into his eyes, and she had to fight the urge to cry when she once again realized just how deeply this strange corpse man cared about her.

“You don't want me to do it, do you?”

Her voice cracked around the question, and he shook his head again, gentle against her palm. To illustrate, he grabbed her hand and pulled it away from his face, squeezing it in both of his and kissing it before placing it over his slowly beating heart.

He still couldn't speak, but his meaning was still very clear.

No, I don't. Losing you would break me, there has to be another way. Don't make me go through this second life without you.

She sighed, a tear rolling down her cheek before she could try to hide it, but her husband (God, what was so strange to think about, she had a husband now, and one that she may very well have to give up soon) removed one of his hands from hers and used it to cup her cheek this time, wiping the tear away with his thumb, his eyes swimming with unshed tears of his own.

“Oh, I don't want to lose you, either. I only just got you, I don't want to let you go yet, but I don't know how else we're going to avoid this. They'll need to find a body or they'll never leave us alo-”

Her rambling cut off suddenly, her brow furrowing in thought.

“Wait…”

Her creature grunted questioningly, and she lifted her eyes to him, the gleam in them making him lean closer.

“I have an idea.”

Before he could inquire further, Lisa was tugging him along by his hand (as was their custom) and leading him to a closet in the hallway. She flung open the door to reveal an eclectic bunch of items that he didn't have names for, but Lisa was clearly gunning for something specific. She bent down and pulled away a cloth dust cover from a strangely lumpy object, which was revealed to be some sort of full-body mannequin, clearly meant to be used for tailoring or displays. Lisa hefted the plastic body up from under its armpits and hauled it towards her bedroom, all while her Creature looked on incredulously. She caught his eyes and huffed, continuing her mission.

“What? I got this from work; Wayne got it to display some of the new outfits on and decided it was too creepy to keep, so he let me have it to design dresses with. I had to keep it covered in the closet because it nearly gave Janet a heart attack l, so I had to put a cloth over it. I haven't used it for a while, but now…”

She had succeeded in bringing it into her room, and she propped it up against the end table at the base of her bed and leaned against it, smiling.

“Say hello to the soon-to-be-dead Lisa Swallows.”

Her husband tilted his head, confused for a moment before his eyes widened, understanding dawning on his mostly-human features. Lisa nodded along with him, voicing the plan she knew he understood.

“Yep. We're going to fake my death.”

The creature's eyes widened, and Lisa left the mannequin at the end of her bed while she ran to her closet, rifling through for some clothes as she explained the rest of her thought process.

“The way I see it, what we really need is time. If we dress this thing up to look at least a little bit like me, then we can put it in the tanning bed and let the faulty wiring do its thing, and while everyone is scrambling to take care of that, we'll take the next train out of here and get across as many state lines as we can before they realize the charred ‘body’ isn't me, if they ever do at all. We don't have to grab a corpse and the police will be all over Bachelor’s by now anyway, so this seems like the best option.”

She emerged with a black blouse and matching maxi skirt, which she made short work of dressing the mannequin in. Her husband helped as best he could, holding the plastic dummy down so Lisa could shimmy the clothing onto its unyielding body, and once she was done they took a simultaneous step back to examine their work. It obviously wasn't a perfect match, but it was serviceable for its intended purpose, they supposed.

Lisa placed her hands on her hips and took a deep breath, centering herself for a moment before she was taking her husband’s hand again, pulling them both towards the closet.

“C'mon, we've got to get changed. As comfortable as I am right now I don't want to flee the police in a nightgown.”

The creature hummed in agreement, and after Lisa had quickly selected a new outfit for herself, he had snuck away to her father's closet to find some alternative options for himself.

By the time he returned, dressed in another button down shirt, work pants and suspenders, Lisa had gotten changed into a pale pink blouse and a pair of black jeans, and was hurrying back and forth from the closet with different bundles of clothes in her arms as she filled a large backpack that was sitting next to the mannequin.

When she noticed him standing there and watching her with a raised eyebrow, she stopped just long enough to shrug.

“We're going to need a ‘go bag’, I don't know how long we'll be on the lam before we feel comfortable enough to stop at a thrift store.”

Her husband conceded with a nod, and the new bride occupied herself with adding a few toiletries, a large wad of cash from a nondescript envelope in her dresser, clearly sentimental accessories (such as two gold rings and a locket) and the picture of her mother before she walked over to her dresser to retrieve the last thing she needed; a small purple velvet pouch that clattered strangely when she placed it in her pocket.

In the time it took him to blink questioningly at her, she had handed him the mannequin and threw the backpack over her shoulders, taking his hand before leading them to the door. She took one last lingering look at her bedroom before she shut the door for the last time and led them both out to the shed.

Once inside, they stood facing the method of her ‘demise’; the tanning bed lay open for them like a gaping neon maw, and Lisa instructed her undead husband to lay the mannequin in it like a person, which he did. Once the false Lisa was secured, the real one reached into her pocket and pulled out the purple velvet pouch, and as her husband watched she untied the drawstrings and extracted the contents: four teeth, flecks of dried blood around the base of each.

Her husband made a slightly panicked inquiring sound, and she smiled knowingly up at him.

“I had to get my wisdom teeth removed a few years ago, the dentist said the little bastards would wreck the years of braces hell I endured in middle school, and I wasn't about to risk that. They let me keep them afterwards, and I was going to make them into earrings or something, but this seems more important. I'm going to need to leave some DNA behind if they're ever going to think it's me in there.”

The creature was given no opportunity to wonder what DNA was before Lisa was arranging the teeth around the approximate mouth of the mannequin, presumably so that they would be in approximately the correct place when the mannequin burned. All of this was completely baffling to her companion, but if it would help buy them time to escape then he was willing to go along with whatever she asked.

Once she was finished, she stepped back to examine her work. Once she was satisfied that she had left enough of herself behind, she closed the lid of the tanning bed and went to join her husband closer to the entrance of the shed, the two of them looking at the makeshift coffin with the “Kiss of Life” sticker. She took his hand, bringing it up to her lips and kissing it before she nodded to the contraption.

“Would you do the honors? Seems only fitting.”

He nodded, and he moved forward to the dial on the lid of the bed, Lisa calling from behind him.

“Make sure you set it to ‘Max Bronze'.”

Her husband nodded, doing as she asked before stepping back to join her a safe distance away from the now-sparking tanning bed.

As they watched, the sparks caught and turned into flames, ones that quickly started enveloping the shed around them. They slipped out as the sound of sirens started to approach in the distance, and Lisa had just enough time to bid one last silent goodbye to the life she knew before they were gone, fleeing hand-in-hand into the night together as newlyweds and onto a new life together.

[breezybeej]

You

Have Got

To Be

Kidding Me

Let me try to express myself better.

When Spock grasps Kirk's hand, it's incredibly layered. Others can give a better summary of the structure of TMP than I can so I'll try to just do broad strokes.

Spock has been away. He left Kirk to go do Vulcan shit and forget how to feel emotions but he can't bring himself to do it. He's needed elsewhere. Kirk and Spock reunite after their extended separation and there's immediately a certain animosity. It almost feels like Spock blames Kirk for him being unable to commit to his Vulcan ritual.

During all this, the B plot is of a couple. They have friction arising from their lifestyles and dedication to duty. Much like Kirk and Spock had for 3 seasons of TOS. The woman gets 'brainwashed' (WAY OVERSIMPLIFYING) by the threatening seemingly unstoppable ancient entity. She loses her humanity*, her emotions and tenderness. She's all logic, no passion. Just like spock.

Plot happens, Spock communes with this entity and is knocked unconscious. He comes to with tears in his eyes, he's expressing emotion in ways we've rarely seen from him. He tells us that he knows what the big bad has been seeking. "This grasps hand simple feeling. "

An aside to explain Vulcans and touch. Spock (allegedly) tries to avoid touching people as much as he can. Vulcans are touch telepaths. Even when he does touch, it is (again, allegedly) small contacts, fingers only, or through fabric.

He grabs James Kirk full on by the hand and... Does what? Why he uses that touch telepathy to channel "this feeling" into him. To directly explain it. And what was that feeling? Why love of course. That is what this entity was trying to understand all along. That is why it 'brainwashed' the lady because she loved her man and it wanted to understand.

This hand holding is like. The Big Gay Moment in Star Trek (aside from Amok Time). It's one of the big symbols in shipping (I think back then they were still calling it slash?). It has to be one of the most well known fandom gay things. surely. It was the blueprint.

But BJ, I hear you say, there's only so many ways two people can hold hands. It can be a coincidence.

Point 1: why was the device Mayor Dick gave Faith designed such that she had to grab Buffy that specific way. They could have had any number of methods but they chose one that necessitated the hand clasp.

Point 2: Vulcan telepathy has the Mind Meld. The two parties merge minds fully. Once you become each other, you feel what that person feels. Their thoughts become yours. You embody them fully. That is what happens to Faith in these two episodes. and like a mind meld, it is dangerous. She nearly loses herself and when she comes back out, she is changed. Buffy is also changed.

Point 3: How do they swap back? With a Katra? What is a Katra?

Well. that's a star Trek thing. It is what my best friend Sarek up there said: your essence. Everything about you that is not physical: your thoughts and emotions and experiences. Vulcans can actually implant their Katra into someone else. And over time, they will start to manifest in the personality and actions of that person. They will gradually become them.

And that is what happens to Faith

Look, I don't know how strongly I can express the importance of the Kirk and Spock hand grasp. I need Star Trek fans to come in here and back me up. This is making me insane. Please tell me I am not the only person seeing this Doug Petrie, I need to talk to you. Douglas. Come Here.

[kazumasdiary]

one of the things im only now noticing about 2-3 is just how well it sets up for 2-4.

because. okay. 2-4 has a lot of big, dramatic moments. and these are powerful reveals, but they won't hit as hard if you're not invested: if you don't care about gregson and barok, then you're not going to care when bad things happen to them.

so 2-3 does its absolute best to make you care.

going into 2-4, the characters that are immediately going to have the biggest problems are, again, gregson and barok: you need to care that gregson dies, and you need to care that barok is arrested for it.

so, when you're investigating the exhibition stage, 2-3 reintroduces gina, and reintroduces her as gregson's apprentice. their relationship is antagonistic, but lighthearted: gregson clearly cares for her, at least enough to try and protect her, and to bring her to paris with him. and gina, for her part, looks markedly happier when you meet her again in 2-3- she has a dog and a brand new badge and she's having fun, because for once in her life, someone else is looking after her. gregson is looking after her.

and that way, when gregson dies, it matters- because even if you don't care, gina does.

gregson's death hurts, in part, because of gina's reaction. it's her grief that lets the player know what's been lost. and that grief gets its basis in 2-3, because 2-3 shows us that they care about each other- in establishing this relationship, 2-3 gives gina, and the player, something to lose when gregson dies.

and, speaking of giving people a relationship with another character to get you to care about them- then we have barok.

the first investigation phase of 2-3 begins by humanizing barok as hard as it possibly can. ryunosuke is allowed into his office for the first time, and- and least for me- whenever we examined something in there, the vibe of the subsequent interaction felt like nothing so much as "grumpy man dragged unwillingly into friendship." we're touching everything in his office, and he's clearly exasperated with us, but not enough to stop us from touching everything in his office. this is also, i think, the first example of ryunosuke and barok having any kind of relationship outside of the courtroom. we see ryunosuke's concern when he first finds out barok's been attacked, and if you examine the chessboard in his office, you can get a line about ryunosuke wanting to challenge him to a contest of shogi problems. so 2-3 starts by introducing us to a barok that is somebody outside of the prosecutor across the courtroom, that is something more than the terror of the reaper, and that'll matter later.

but most importantly, 2-3 gives barok a friend.

specifically, a friend that is silly. ridiculous, even. his character design and personality contrast starkly with barok's, and yet he's the one who tells us repeatedly that barok's really nice, actually- that barok was kind when albert knew him, and he doesn't know what happened to change him ten years ago but he still considers barok a friend.

and what's more, albert believes in him. when he's speaking to barok in the prison, you get this exchange:

Harebrayne: ......... Since I returned to England, I've heard lots of stories. Barok, are you really...? Van Zieks: What? Harebrayne: ......... Never mind. I know that you have my best interests at heart.

he's well aware that barok is known for essentially killing the people who prosecutes. and he almost asks about it! but he doesn't- he chooses to trust barok, instead.

ryunosuke is not even there for this interaction in the prison. the game makes a point of showing it to the player anyway. and i think it's because we need to know that at least one person is capable of trusting barok, that at least one person thinks barok is someone worth believing in.

because one case later, we're going to see barok in a prison cell, and he's going to tell us, "i'm not the reaper and i didn't do it." and we're going to have to believe him.

2-3 does a number of other things to lay the groundwork for 2-4: establishing the professor case, bringing kazuma back, all of that. but i highlight gregson and barok as examples because i think they focus on setting up emotional investment, as opposed to setting up plot elements. and maybe because of that, they stand on their own. gregson's relationship with gina and barok's relationship with albert have emotional weight, even without the context of anything that happens after. but those relationships also make what happens after matter more, because they give us a reason to care.

2-3 is not really a self-contained story, by any means, but it manages to be its own thing, with its own satisfying conclusion, while also serving the overarching plot. it's not perfect- by the end of the case, the professor mystery had so wholly overtaken the actual crime that i almost forgot harebrayne was the defendant. but i think 2-3 does a pretty good job, and i think that might be part of the reason why i like it.

(or it might just be the goths. this case has some really good witnesses, and i freely admit i may be biased.)

[possiblylando]

Chainsaw Man Chapter 131 'Early' Analysis.

Bit later than usual with this one cause- I didn't feel like writing it earlier- Feels like a cheep excuse but whatever.

It's really interesting seeing the contrast between the two confirmed Primordials. Darkness doesn't speak a language we can understand but it still speaks. It seemed like a hyper intelligent beast which acted on a type of intelligent impulse almost like majin buu. Who I could make an entire post talking about the intelligence and mentality of because of how people misunderstand him. But I'll not do that for now since this is about Chainsaw Man. However Falling completely juxtaposes Darkness because she's basically it's polar opposite. Not fear wise but personality and the way she conducts herself. This panel is the one that really cemented it in my mind because this is her showing the ability to reason. It's weird- She's weird right? She's brutal but not cruel. She's willing to let her previous rule slide because the situation has changed. She doesn't immediately kill the devil (WHO'S NAME WE NEVER LEARN GOD DAMN IT FUJIMOTO) because it didn't finish it's meal. Also their designs which I feel I've pointed out before but I don't wanna look back for if I did or if it was in a specific post.

They're completely different but they share motifs between eachother. I'll go through some of those cause I didn't actually put them together until I was writing this so I feel it's an observation that you guys also might want to hear. 1. They both have several extra arms. 2. They both have dismembered heads as apart of their body. 3. Their arms are double jointed. (Shown Below)

I feel these are going to be reoccurring themes throughout most (maybe even all) of the primordial devils we see. Additionally this isn't a full on pattern but it seems like a Primordial appears roughly every 60 chapters. Darkness first appeared in 65, Falling first appeared in 122 (Full appearance in 123). Back to the chapter itself.

I find it interesting that Falling begins to bleed more profusely when she gets upset. Based on what I've previously said and what we saw at the end of the chapter it's possible her degree over this overworld vessel lessens and thus it's bleeding begins to worsen when she grows upset. Like it requires a degree of concentration to keep together. Which I think is interesting but will likely not be the key to winning any singular fight. Falling nukes the UNNAMED DEVIL and we get the weirdest scene in awhile.

This scene answers 1 question. Yet it raises several more. So let's lightning round it. 1. Why did falling take orders from Famine? 2. Why did her vessel turn into a weird shrunken doll? 3. Uh- Actually no thats- Thats it. Huh. So less questions than I thought and more like just one question. Huh. well key things. I think this is what Falling's truest hell form (Like Darkness) looks like.

It would fit more with the primordial sort of warped appearance we've seen before. It's also the form she appeared in 122 and the beginning of 123 as. So I feel pretty confident in that assumption.

The silly girl is back.

Fucking smugass dickhead smirk she's so fucking good

So this is- Weird right? Nayuta definitely has the ability to identify other Horsemen since she was able to sniff out Famine instantly. So she must know about Asa and Yoru in some vague sense. I guess having that confirmation also sorta shifts that end of chapter reveal. Yeah remember "Thief." it probably wasn't just about Denji having a girlfriend but Nayuta not wanting another Horseman to steal Denji from her. Also it's interesting that aside from War (Maybe), All the horsemen we've seen up until this point have been somewhat benevolent. Ah- Maybe not- Okay lemme rephrase. They've been on the side of humanity. Makima despite being- Makima, She was still trying to aid humanity in her own twisted way. Now Famine is trying to save humanity from the apocalypse in her own twisted way. It's possible that Yoru wants nuclear weapons so she can save humanity from destruction- In her own twisted way. And lemme also make this prediction now. The final horseman will also be trying to save humanity in their own twisted way. (I'm still not making a claim on what the final horseman could be I've elaborated on it in the past if you're a true fan of these you'll know the basic gist Tl;Dr there have been several 4th horsemen in history depending on the source).

This was pretty funny honestly. Nayuta's arm is drawn sorta weird which is abit distracting cause it's the only thing I can stare at now that I've seen it. It doesn't really detract and it's a weekly manga so I can't really complain that much either. Also that girl in the back the one with white hair reminds me of Snake Girl from part 1.

No shot they're actually related in anyway tho- This chapter actually only has low quality faces in the final school drawing so no need to compile them this week. So instead Nayuta silly compilation.

She really is just Power if she wasn't Racist. Okay- Listen- We don't have confirmation that Nayuta isn't racist. But she would have to pick that up herself since I doubt Denji would teach her to be racist because Denji isn't racist.

[fandomsnstuff]

Design - verb - do or plan something with a specific purpose or intention in mind

Just keep that in mind for the big 2-0 k thanks

@taznovembercelebration

Day 20: design

If Taako sentenced himself to going to Lup's hockey games, the least he could do for himself is talk to the hot guy that's there.

Read it on AO3

The unfortunate thing about being the world's best brother, is that whenever his sister pulls out the elongated “pleaaaaaaaaase?” Taako just can't say no. Which is how he found himself sentenced to spending at least an hour every Sunday in a room full of ice for the foreseeable future. Why Lup had to get into hockey of all things, he'll never understand. But she asked him to come, because she wants somebody in the stands, and Barry's schedule changed recently, so now, a month into the season, Taako's gotta do it. At least he's allowed to leave immediately after the game.

He walks into the arena and inhales sharply. “Jesus fucking christ.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. It's illegally cold in here. He knew Lup was full of shit when she said ice rinks “aren't that bad.”

He scans the pathetically sparse stands. Not a ton of people willing to come out to low-tier women's hockey at noon on a Sunday. There is, however, someone who catches his eye.

Sitting in the back row is tall, dark, and handsome personified. He's wearing a black wool trench coat and leather gloves, one of which he's pulled off as he scrolls on his phone. Taako casually beelines for him.

“This seat taken?”

The man of Taako's dreams looks up, surprise on his handsome face. “No!” He says a little too quickly and a little too loudly. He clears his throat. “No, please, it's all yours.”

“Sweet.” He plops down the dumb little cushion Barry gave him and sits. “So,” he crosses his legs and props his head up on his hand, “come here often?”

He puts his phone away and pulls his glove back on. “Every week. I come to watch my mother play.”

Taako quirks an eyebrow. “No offence, but. Why? You're a grown ass man. Don't you have literally anything else you could be doing?”

He laughs awkwardly. “Honestly? No. I pretty much just eat, sleep, and work. This gets me out of the house.” He seems to suddenly remember he's also talking to someone who's voluntarily come here to watch the exact same game. “Why are you here, If you have something better to do?”

He shrugs. “My sister asked me, and I'd be hard pressed to say no.” He straightens up and holds out his hand, “Taako.”

He takes it, “Kravitz.”

“Charmed.” The gloves feel like expensive leather. “So, Kravitz, explain something to me.”

“Sure?”

“What's up with the box on wheels?” He gestures to the ice, where said box on wheels is just driving off the ice.

Kravitz laughs, “the zamboni? It floods the ice, so it's smooth for whoever's coming on next.”

“That thing can fully reset the surface in, what, five minutes?”

“Pretty much, unless there's a pretty nasty gouge in it.”

“Wild.” The teams come out on the ice and start skating in circles around each half, split up by a foot-wide red line down the center. Taako leans over, “which one is yours?”

Kravitz laughs again. “My mom's lucky number 13 on the black team. You?”

“Well hey, Lup's 18 on that team.”

Realisation dawns on his face. “Oh, you're Lup's brother?”

Taako looks at him quizzically. “Took you that long? We have the same face.”

He gets sheepish, “I've maybe only actually seen her a few times, but I usually sit with Barry, so…”

“Well Barold's tied up on Sundays in academic hell for the next little while, so you're stuck with me.”

Kravitz's brow furrows, “I don't remember him saying anything about that?”

“Don't feel bad, I hardly remember a thing he says too.”

“No, it's just– he didn't say why he wasn't coming this week, but he loves talking about his research, so I would assume if it was because of that, he'd say something? He just told me he wasn't coming, and you were, and that–” he cuts himself off and clears his throat. “Yeah, weird, I dunno.”

“No, no. Finish that sentence. What did my dear brother in law say about me?”

“He just said that… he thought we would get along? And I'm self aware enough to know I'm not super socially adept, but he had a tone that I think he was insinuating… something?”

Taako hums, and looks Kravitz up and down. He looks out to the ice and sees number 18 standing with number 13. Lup holds out a gloved hand and does a “thumbs up? Thumbs down?” gesture. Taako ignores her and presses closer to Kravitz. For warmth. “I don't know much about hockey, so you'll have to teach me.”

Kravitz is silent for a moment, processing the sudden change of subject. “I'm sure I can handle that.”

The game starts shortly, and Taako gets far more into it than he expected.

“What the hell was that whistle for?!”

“They were offside,” Kravitz points to the ice, “the puck has to cross the blue line into the other team's end before any of our players can, and vice versa. Then if the puck leaves their end and comes back in, we have to get out past the blue line as fast as possible.”

Taako crosses his arms and slumps back. “That's bullshit.”

“You didn't seem to mind when it helped us out five minutes ago.”

He glares at him, and Kravitz laughs. Play resumes for a good few minutes, then the whistle blows again for apparently no reason. Taako barely has time to inhale before Kravitz says, “it's because they iced the puck.”

“Now you know I don't know what–” he scoffs, incredulous, “why the fuck are they starting in our end?!”

“Because they iced it. Someone from our team shot the puck from our side of the red line, and it went all the way down the ice and passed the goal line at the other end, and no one got close enough to keep the puck in play before it got there. So they bring it back to our end to start again.”

“Maybe the other team should just be faster and stop that then.”

“But they want to be in our end, so an icing helps them out.”

“I don't like this icing. I prefer buttercream.”

Kravitz's laugh practically echoes around the arena.

The game ends. A victory for Lup's team despite all of the, in Taako's eyes, stupid rules. Kravitz is getting up to leave and Taako says, “hey, Krav. Can I borrow your phone?”

“Uh, sure,” he hands it over, “here.”

Taako takes it and adds himself as a contact, then texts himself, “can I take you to dinner?” He turns it off and hands it back to Kravitz. “Thanks. I'll see you later.”

He leaves, and once he's out in the parking lot, he takes his own phone and responds to the text he sent himself, “sure thing, handsome. Mind if I pick?”

He gets in his car and his phone pings with two texts.

One is from Kravitz: “Absolutely you can pick, just let me know when and were. As we've established, my social calendar is wide open.”

The second is from Lup: “You're welcome.”

[thesporkidentity]

an incomplete list of texts i sent as i slowly lost my mind over the second book of rivers of london, because i fully intend to drag at least one more person into this pit with me. come read with me i promise you're gonna feel so good and normal over this book, come closer

wow okay peter remains the absolute horniest bastard ever. is he a tits or an ass man? yes

oh we are just getting the surface levels hints of nightingales MOUNTAIN of unresolved PTSD and i am very 🥺

you ever feel like a character was written specifically to appeal to you? i'm getting so many tantalizing hints and i KNOW he's going to destroy because he's catnip. he is bait specifically designed to hurt my feelings

also his description makes me think of lee pace or like, 90s/00s paul mcgann and that's just Very Good and i'm being deeply not normal about it

also nightingale reads as SO queer to me, and the potential in fic to explore what that means insofar as how he has navigated the changing landscape of queerness from 1900 to present day is so tantalizing. i don't care that the author says he's not, in this case the author is wrong lol

i must say, i do not care for simone. if we absolutely MUST have hetersexual nonsense in this book i would like beverly back please. she was cool and not a cheating homewrecking jazz groupie lol

still not impressed with simone. i mean, far be it from me to judge a woman's grieving process and all, but she doesn't seem very broken up over her within-the-week dead lover. i mean, i LOVE peter and all and he's hot shit, but immediately falling into bed with him? sus

in conclusion bring 👏 bev 👏 back 👏

also peter, buddy, WHAT ARE YOU DOING

he's a disaster so even though i'm screaming DON'T DO THAT i am unsurprised he is being led around by his dick by a beautiful woman throwing herself at him

but i just. i Don't Trust Her. she doesn't make sense, and i can't tell if this is a case of male author writing wish fulfillment and thus not giving the hot girl adequate motivation of her own

or whether i AM supposed to find it suspicious the way she basically doesn't mourn the man she homewrecked who died very suddenly and then IMMEDIATELY jumps into bed with the magic cop investigating his very probable murder

and i REALIZE the only way to find out is to keep reading, it's just frustrating that women are written poorly so often that, even if he's written good women before, i still have to debate with this is a subtle clue or just Male Author Syndrome

oh my god he finally twigs that this may be weird behavior. peter. bud.

at least he got it before trying to sneak her past folly wards?

side note: god lesley really got the short end of the stick. like, her face fell off, her teeth are a fucking mess, and she probably has brain damage. she got royally shafted

peter "i'm totally straight" grant, talking about how he wants to take a muscly guy by the shoulders and kiss his cheeks and making sure to mention how many phone numbers her got while canvasing the gay bar.

hmm sure, jan

look i KNOW peter is Incredibly Horny All The Time when near any attractive woman, but simone appears from NOWHERE half dressed while he's canvassing for the jazz vampire and he just skives off like that? while looking for a potential killer? that doesn't seem like him he's not that irresponsible. that smells like conspiracy and glamour and i don't trust herrrrrrr

like, peter was already horny wanting to motorboat mama thames (lol don't think i didn't catch that pun) last book. but this book has been a whole new level of horny, and peter may be distractible but not THAT distractible surely

another side note. i love molly and nightingale's weird friendship they've developed living basically with just each other for decades.

oh jesus that's fucked up

oh the severed head is talking

oh. oh no. it got worse

peter, darling, beloved, is now REALLY the time to be talking about how hot your boss is? like i appreciate your dedication to the thirst but time and place, bud

oh never mind i forgive you nightingale is so fucking cool, i get it, i love him

he's so good. the most tragic backstory and perfect stiff upper lip old fashioned english gentleman on the outside, and then just below the surface he's a daredevil and a bit of a bitch and he fucking CARES just SO MUCH and have i mentioned how much the casterbrook wall HURTS ME?? this was revealed in the last book but i just remembered it and it stabbed me again

okay i'm done

i feel like peter has miscalculated making a deal with his cousin to teach her if she aces latin. that's gonna come back to bite lol hope you like teaching too smart for their own good teenagers cuz that's gonna be your life now

"but sir, what do we do if you die??!" "well, that doesn't seem like it will be my problem at that point :)" he's such a bitch sometimes and i LOVE him, mother

ohhhhh. oh no. the pale lady looked like molly and now molly is obviously not okay after she died, that resemblance wasn't just coincidence she definitely knew her 😢

and this is the first person peter has killed, no matter how accidentally. and nightingale is back in the hospital with his chest infection. wow everyone is just having a terrible time right now

okay. i realize that as a memory for him this probably isn't a GOOD one, it's from the war and probably much scarier and MUCH more traumatizing than he makes it sound with his dry narration of it. but god. nightingale knocked out two TANKS. by himself. with his mind. fucking sexy lol

oh damn it why can't they just let me be horny about how powerful he is instead of immediately following it with the fact that he was rear guard and making emotional that it means he was the one trusted to watch over and protect the rest of his men while they retreated as that one final shield between them and enemy fire

hhhhhhhholy shit what did simone DO to mama grant???!!!!

she just bitch slapped her!

OH MY GOD SHE TRIED TO HOMEWRECK HIS PARENTS TOO???

she's PLAUSIBLY IMMORTAL???

fuck i was right she was sketchy as hell!!

she's a fucking jazz vampire and she's been glamouring and sucking him dry! buddy, get to dr walid STAT for a brain scan and make sure she's not turning you into cauliflower!

peter don't you make excuses for her you KNOW it's possible, stop lying about your mum and trying to make her feel better you need to take her in she's a m u r d e r e r

i mean, glamour yes i realize but god, frustrating

good lad peter, i see you fighting it 💪🏾

ohhhhhhhh. oh fuck. she didn't KNOW. she didn't know she was from the 40s and killing people. oh this is bad

nightingale, attempting to show concern: "that was not the most intelligent thing you've done" xD 10/10 nailed it buddy

umm, nightingale? this may not be the black and white moral situation you think it is to go in guns blazing...

it's both funny and little sad how militant both molly and dr walid are when nightingale is injured like. i do LOVE when the person who is SUPPOSEDLY in charge gets lovingly bullied, but it hurts because that's also probably the ONLY way to make him take care of himself is if they FORCE him. and peter's not any better, he's gonna need bullying too

i do love when they team up though. molly and nightingale ganging up against peter like. nightingale gets the special treatment and a hot cocoa from molly, but peter gets the dog's leash and smug little "i'm on bedrest :)" or nightingale foisting the rest of his kidney pie on peter while molly is out of the room then grabbing his empty plate back to pretend he ate it all himself when she returns xD

the cases are interesting and all, but i think it's the core characters that are really the standout of the novel and the reason i keep reading even while i'm asking myself things like, but WHY is she killing via vagina dentata instead of literally any other assassination method? i think it's also why simone stood out so much. she HAD no background that we were told (until now) aside from being sexy. which of course i now know was intentional

"this is your brain, which is not only clean and unsullied by thought..." i love dr walid. it probably says something about me that my favorite characters all have to be at least a little bit of a bitch

oh no i'm having feeeeeelings about both nightingale and peter trying to keep the other out of the vampire raid to shield them from the emotional effects of it, just from opposite ends. nightingale doesn't want peter to have the pain of ANOTHER death on his hands, this one purposeful as opposed to the accidental death of the pale lady, so he's trying to just cut him out of it. and then peter ALSO doesn't want NIGHTINGALE to have the weight of more deaths on his soul and wants to protect him from what he sees as the unfortunate necessity of having to off someone who isn't intentionally hurting someone but still may be too dangerous to live. nightingale trying to save peter from his bleeding heart and peter saving nightingale from his practicality overriding his morality 😭 i just love when characters try to take care of each other in mirrored ways

uh...uh oh peter...no i don't think those are the police OR nightingale's paratrooper buddies

okay the audiobook is fucking excellent though, his infomercial voice while extolling the virtues of doc martins is KILLING me

oh this posh wanker. "oh what is feeding on people but another form of exploitation, and we all know there's nothing wrong with exploiting workers, equality is morally bankrupt anyway" god i hate you already you're insufferable

like of COURSE a dining club oxford nose wipe would think that way. he thinks he's sooooo slick and original with his chimeras they're such exciting new COL crimes but it all just boils down the the exact same rich white bullshit mentality

he would hate it if he realized how dull and banal his villainy is once you strip back the shock value of the trappings. just another entitled prick who views people as things, fuck this dude

i'd be tempted to say the faceless man's signare smelling like pork was a dig at david cameron and piggate if i didn't know it was written a few years too early for that lol

peter: oh no nightingale is going to give me SUCH a bollocking nightingale, obviously so relieved he's alive: very much does NOT give him a bollocking and instead tells him how impressive it is that he didn't just immediately die against the faceless man

"for a terrifying moment i thought he was going to huge me, but fortunately we both remembered we were english just in time. still, it was a close call" 🤣🤣🤣

oh ouch peter. just use all his dead friends against him. effective but also, low blow

god he wants so badly for peter to be right, too, that they and HE doesn't have to kill anyone anymore, that how that it's not Just Him ALl Alone they might have the support structure for other options. oh no i want this to work so badly so that hope is validated, but i just know something is gonna go wrong

welp

i didn't like her but i didn't want her fuckin DEAD you know?

and now the ones left standing have to deal with the trauma and the fallout

oh lesley :( they're both trying so hard to be normal about it and they're such good friends 🥺

LESLEY DO MAGIC?

LESLEY JOIN TEAM FOLLY???!!

also don't think you've been sneaky there and that i haven't noticed SOME sort of thematic symmetry of lesley struggling with having lost her face involuntarily from magic, and the faceless man having voluntarily masked himself. involuntary vs voluntary loss of identity. i'm sure there will be more parallels in the next book but like. i see you. i see you setting up face themes with these two

hopefully with lesley regaining her face somehow and thus reclaiming identity while the faceless man is unmasked thus losing the identity he built for himself and revealing the true one he hid. maybe hopefully? i want good things for lesley and bad things for the faceless one.

[romanceclub-lovers]

Romance Club week festivities with interviews from our favorite authors, technical designers, artists and the boss Vlad...

📣Stay tuned upcoming interview with Arina (Theodora & W: Time Catcher) and the boss project manager Vlad...

First we'll start with Wincy Wong author of Heart of Trespia and Soulless

Greetings, dear Wincy! Today your favorite Romance Club turns 6 years old, and you are already celebrating your 3rd birthday with us. How are you feeling on this beautiful day?

Answer: Happy 6th Birthday! I can't believe I've been working at the Romance Club for 3 years and writing my second story! I am truly grateful for the passion and love with which you support us and our stories! Thank you for making our community so special!

We would like to ask you some interesting questions :)

1. How do you approach creating technical specifications for cut-scene artists? How do you decide where and when a cut scene is needed? Do you immediately imagine what you want to see or do you first look for a picture?

A: I think the ideal time for a cutscene is when a costly choice is being made, but sometimes I favor my favorite moments in updates.

2. What century would you like to find yourself in if you were the heroine of a visual novel and in what setting and genre?

Answer: This is a difficult question. From a writer's perspective, I love them all, just as I love writing fantasy, but I wouldn't want to live in a historical period with tyrant rulers and no flush toilets. Although, if I really had to choose, I would choose the Tang Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Taizong.

3. Has there ever been a time when you wanted to write a scene and the character took you down a completely different path, refusing to give in to the original idea?

Answer: Several times. The first one that comes to mind is Christina, Reinhold's childhood friend. I planned for her to be much more jealous, but when I got to this scene, I felt sorry for her because Reinhold would never reciprocate her feelings. So I abandoned the idea of her conspiring with her mother, instead placing all the blame for Ellaire's poisoning on the evil old witch.

4. Were there any scenes in Heart of Trespia that never made it into the plot for a variety of reasons? If there are any, could you briefly tell us about it?

A: There weren't many possible scenes included in the story, mostly due to character development or new plot twists that changed the course of the story. I can say that there is a secret ending for Wyatt, which I planned for a long time, but in the end it turned out to be inaccessible to the players. There's even a sketch of a diary. This ending requires Wyatt to go through a bad breakup with Ellaire, but there are enough improvements with him that he is able to survive the war. It seems to me that no one has yet managed to unlock this ending.

5. Knowing your approach to developing stories, you probably have drawn a map and thought out the political structure of the world, the types of magic used in it. Could you tell us more about the world order in Soulless?

Answer: “Soulless”, unlike “Heart of Trespia”, is an ordinary fantasy. Silverport is a fictional city based on Chicago. Besides adding some real world elements, much of the lore of this story is centered on supernatural elements such as Vincent's magic, the powers of various demons, etc. In terms of hierarchy, I'd say Trexio/Trexia is what you'd call the "supreme" demonic presence in Silverport, and Vincent acts as an accompanying force that is more like the administrative authorities in our world, maintaining order and not truly interfering in our daily lives unless we give them a reason to. The Vixaria, after all, is just “one of us” trying to navigate a fast-paced world with no major strings attached other than not killing people.

6. Who proposed the idea of introducing such new features into “Soulless” as choosing love preferences, stat tips, different descriptions of romantic scenes - you or the management?

Answer: Including selection hints was the team's idea. I suggested other ideas, and we worked together to implement them. I've been wanting "thought clouds" ever since I wrote ST! You have no idea how excited I am to finally see all those cute little clouds showing off Vixaria's evil thoughts with her smug grin.

7. Surely many will be interested to know, including us, how long in the story of “Soulless” it will be possible to carry on parallel love lines? And will this affect the relationship with the finally chosen character in the future?

Answer: Honestly, I don't have a definitive answer to this question right now, but I think you won't have to choose until at least the middle of the second season. Until then, I'll try not to punish players for exploring different paths, but I can't promise anything just yet.

✅Favorites in full size/Characters in full size:

8. Finally, what would you wish to the Romance Club team on this day?

Answer: I wish that the Romance Club continues to expand throughout the world! Our stories are too beautiful not to be known in all corners of the world.

Thank you for your time! We congratulate you and your entire YSI team on the birthday of your favorite application! And we wish you all inspiration, stunning ideas and prosperity.

Wincy also shared with us the sketch and Wyatt’s original version. Wincy also shared with us a sketch and the initial version of Wyatt.

Source: Wincy's fantasy world | Soulless | ST | RC

[gingerteaonthetardis]

“Hey, have you seen the…? Oh.”  (tentoo x rose) for the lighthearted prompts? 💕

love love love your writing and I hope you’re having a great day!

hey, dear, thanks for your patience on this one! i had my housewarming this past weekend and hosted some out-of-town visitors, so i had to put down my pen for a little bit. but i'm back with a spot of domestic fluff! hope you don't mind that this story is kind of baby-centric. i couldn't really have a pete's world fic without at least the *implication* of mia...

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

They'd agreed the place in London was only temporary—a stepping-stone on the path to a more permanent home, or possibly on the path to the TARDIS 2.0. Actually, she wasn't super clear what path they were specifically on, but it didn't matter, did it?

Because they were on it together. And together, they tended to find their way.

Anyway, they had agreed.

Their landlord was a bit laissez-faire about things, but that didn't mean they ought to put in their own time and energy fixing the flat up only to have to move out once their lease ended. And Rose was fine with that. She felt no need to repaint or restain and make her mark. Interior design was hardly her passion, and the Doctor seemed to feel more or less the same.

So, when the accident happened—"Good accident!" the Doctor had cried—and it became clear they needed more space, she'd not been terribly invested in redoing the office from the ground-up. They just needed to make it habitable, and most of all, safe.

"It's only temporary," she'd reminded him. "I'll keep checking the papers and asking 'round." With a smile, she'd added, "We'll be somewhere with more space in no time, promise."

No time, however, had turned into four months. And then six.

And the dramatic change that was coming seemed to eat up every spare moment of their lives. There weren't enough hours in the day for all the doctor's appointments and Torchwood check-ups and birthing classes, on top of full work days and date nights and Sunday suppers with her mum and Pete and Tony. And Rose was tired; frequently, comprehensively tired—"Good tired," she would tell the Doctor, pushing their house search further and further to the wayside.

All the while, the Doctor chipped away at what had ultimately become his office-cum-workshop-cum-private laboratory. Boxes were packed and boxes were shuffled away into nebulous storage, and Rose rarely had the energy to do more than marvel that he was capable of being so organised. He'd got a label-maker.

That wasn't to say she wasn't excited.

Routine outings with her mum resulted in more than just the bare necessities of parenthood. Packages arrived seemingly every day, almost gloatingly refilling the spaces the Doctor had just opened up. She unwrapped them all with a curious blend of wonder and excitement and trepidation.

Sometimes, she barely remembered her own purchases and the two-pack of little dino-printed dungarees or the double electric breast pump were like a surprise present from her past self, jolting her back to the reality where this was happening. This was her life.

This was her life, and it wasn't waiting for her, no matter how much she tried to put certain decisions on hold or tried to tell herself things were temporary.

So, it was a Tuesday. It was after four, but not yet late enough for the autumn sun to have fully sunk behind the London skyline. And her head was still back at Torchwood, in the Archive, where she'd been reassigned from the field to review old disaster footage, looking for signs of alien intervention. She'd moved through the tube stations by reflex, not fully present and yet not terribly far away: her thoughts no longer tended to veer toward another universe, but rather, towards the more tangible and immediate past of this world. She wanted—she thought, as she dug through her handbag for her keyring—to ask the Doctor something specific, actually. About the Territories, and an assassination at which he'd been present in the other universe. She wanted to compare notes.

Retrieving her keys, Rose let herself into the flat. There was no sign of the Doctor in the living room, and when she poked her head into the kitchen, he wasn't there either. She removed her earbuds, cocking her head and listening. Down the hall, she thought she heard shuffling.

"Doctor?" she called.

Instead of an answer, she got a kind of thumping sound, and a muffled grunt. He must have been packing more boxes.

"Doctor, I'm home," she said, raising her voice as she turned down the hallway. She didn't bother with taking off her shoes; she was getting big enough around the middle now that she tended to ask his help with them anyway. But she shrugged off her pink peacoat—a maternity gift from her mum—and folded it over her arm. "First day on desk duty. You were right about the Archive job, though, it's not boring at all. Actually, hey, have you seen the—? Oh."

She jerked to a halt in front of the open office door, suddenly realising…

It wasn't an office at all.

At least, not anymore.

All signs of the packed boxes were gone. The Doctor's desk—which had been the last big holdout, shoved into the back corner where he could often be found hunched at work at all hours—was nowhere to be found. In its place was white wood draped in thick plastic sheeting. It was a piece Rose vividly remembered picking out, and seeing it even through the warped plastic covering brought a sudden flood of tears to her eyes. It was dimensional, real. A crib. And beside it stood the Doctor, stepping clumsily off the last rung of a ladder.

He wore denim cutoffs she didn't even know he owned, as well as a ratty ringer shirt. His feet were bare. And smeared all over him was paint—so much paint, in various shades. A soft, pinky-red dotted his cheeks, and there was a slash of grassy green up his left forearm. Baby blue clotted his hairline, curling the front strands. Yellow sunlight drippings splattered his chest.

He looked like he'd been involved in some kind of technicolour explosion.

In his hand was a white-soaked paint brush. And on his face was an enormous grin.

"The JFK file?" he finished for her. "Yes, I most certainly have. Who do you think sent it through to your desk?"

But Rose barely heard him. Wide-eyed, she wandered past the threshold and into the room which now boasted three blue walls and a vibrant fourth—the wall with a window, looking out over the back courtyard where the elderly neighbour obsessively tended her autumn crocuses.

It was a rainbow he’d painted, that much was obvious. Sketched out in loose strokes, it was a marvellously vivid and yet somehow soft arc framing the window, through which the setting sun was showing off with all her might.

"I took off early today," the Doctor was saying. "Wanted to get this done before you got home. Obviously, the footage didn't keep you for as long as I'd hoped."

The sky boasted stunning swaths of violet and orange and peach. Puffy white clouds, still damp and glossy, floated in freshly-painted patches against the blue wall, mimicking the cloud banks above the sunset. The outside bleeding inward, or possibly the reverse.

Beside the window was another recognisable piece of furniture heaped in plastic: a white wicker rocking chair. She'd liked the look of it in the store, and had sat comfortably in it for over twenty minutes while her swollen ankles complained, but had ultimately deemed it too much of an expense. And unnecessary, given their comfortable sofa in the living room.

Rose stepped closer, drawn to it as if by magnets.

In an instant, she could see the completed picture. She could see the paint dried, the white curtains fluttering against the open window, and herself in the rocker with her face to the breeze, breathing in clean, green spring air. The neighbour would be puttering around her yellow rose bushes. And in Rose's arms, she'd be cradling their baby—her baby, a real and squirming life she'd brought into the world.

The image was so crisp, so perfectly vivid, that she struggled to blink it away. She resisted it, in fact, and wanted to live in that warm, pleasant moment forever.

"I know what we agreed," the Doctor was saying, his voice gentle. And a little uncertain. "But I just thought—well, we'll only have this once, you know, this first time. And just because this home is temporary doesn't mean it hasn't been important. I mean, it's where we—where…"

She turned from the window and the setting sun, arms already outstretched. Her handbag and coat fell to the floor.

The Doctor met her readily, uncaring that paint was smearing them both. He tucked her against his chest and under his chin, where she buried her nose and hid her red-rimmed eyes. She wanted to tell him it was perfect—it was just like she'd imagined, only she'd never imagined it here, and she hadn't even known she was imagining it, really. She wanted to say that she never would have wanted this particular adventure without him and his daft ideas and his smeary paint and his thoughtfulness.

But her voice was stopped in her throat.

"So… surprise?" the Doctor offered weakly.

She snorted a laugh. Swallowed thickly, trying for the right words.

And she whispered, "Good surprise."

.✫*ﾟ･ﾟ｡.★.*｡･ﾟ✫*.

more lighthearted prompts...

[karimwillia]

Part 17

Warnings: Fluff and Tension

At the game Riri is courtside wearing a custom cropped lettermen’s jacket Shuri specifically wanted her in. With cute ripped jeans and a pair of custom Shuri 11 Jordan’s. The jacket has Shuri’s number and last name on the back and Riri’s name is on the hip in the front with the year on the chest. It’s a look for sure. The players walk-ins are projected on the screen and Shuri looks so damn good in her suit with the no shirt look her chain shines as it’s on display. The rest of the girls don’t look half as good as her Baby. The bias is real.

The energy around introductions was amazing. Riri can’t believe this is her first ever high school game she missed out. Before tip off Shuri runs over to peck Riri’s lips leaning over into her ear Shuri whispers. “You’re my good luck charm.” The blush that overtakes Riri is second to no none. Shuri hops up and goes to work. She plays like a beast the entire game. With 30 of 32 mins playing time she scored 62 points, had 15 rebounds, 9 assists, and managed 4 steals. Benedict wins. The crowd erupted. “What a game for Shuri Udaku that 60 points is her new personal record. Last year her average was 46 points a game. The state record for points in a game is 80 points by any woman. If she keeps gaining momentum do you think we can see her touch the state record?” The commentators chatter away.

In the Main the girls are bouncing off the walls “Yo Panther is that what getting a girlfriend does to you?” Coach Rollins is screaming. “That was one hell of a game! Woooo!” “We are headed to the Championship! I know it!” Someone shouts. Shuri is rushing because she wants to get to Riri and celebrate. Her goal of a new personal record is huge for her.

The season draws on with Shuri and Riri now in a rhythm. They FaceTime with a little show before all games, and Riri sits courtside for any home game. Coach almost requires it now since they have been winning. The kiss is normally always done just before every tip off also. The sleepover are on pause for the season to keep Shuri focused. The school swears the ritual is the reason Shuri is going to hit the State record.

It's Valentine's Day Weekend and the team is on bi week so Shuri has some freedom. “Earth to Shuri! Bro! What are you daydreaming about?” Al is sitting in the Main it’s lunch so that only means one thing. “My bad. I have been seeing this ring design in my mind for days. So I’m getting it sketched out.” Al is interested but concerned. “What type of ring?” “Woah no not a wedding ring or anything like that just a promise ring. It’s for graduation.” Shuri holds up the sketch. The band is simple but twists into the shape of two hearts that interlock.

“You are cold Shuri. I'm so glad you started back designing.” “I have a muse now is all Al. Riri’s work on the nanotechnology health monitor bracelets was the start. From there all my ideas have just been flowing.” “Mhm What did you just say? Your girl is hella smart yo I can see how that’s inspiring.” Shuri laughs at Al. “Yes she is. The concept is that the bracelet houses these tiny robots that keep your vitals, brain waves and all health status closely monitored so that any slight changes can be addressed immediately. That’s how she explained it to me. It is going to be best for athletes because it provides immediate treatment.” Al nods.

“Right right I’m going to nod like I understand. When you all are traveling to the world saving it remember me. All I wanted to know was what you had planned before the lock-in. I know you lovebirds are going to make sure your first Valentine's Day is right.” Shuri shakes her head “My bad I just get excited to talk about her. But I have the Adler Planetarium rented out for a private dinner.” Al twists her face in surprise. “You know what. Why did I even ask? Of course it’s the perfect date.” They walk out after putting everything they have out in the lockers.

Riri is with MJ courtside, their ritual is for anytime Shuri plays. Shuri winks, biting her lip at her Princess before she goes to play. MJ peeps the subtle look. “Ooooh Ri. Why is she looking at you like a meal?” Ri looks out onto the court biting her lip in a similar fashion. “MJ, honestly we have been having some fun. It’s FaceTime but steps.” With wide eyes MJ covers her mouth. “SHUT UP! How come you haven’t told me!” Riri faces her friend. “Michelle you have been MIA on me.” “Ugh Girl I know ok ok I’m sorry I blame Peter. Damn I am missing all the good stuff too. Why FaceTime?” “Basketball season and privacy. Honestly Rohan and Sha are the in person cock blockers. The in school thing is not appealing.”

“Mmmmmm it’s giving very nerdy of you both. I like it.” The girls giggle. “So then Valentine’s Day? What is tea?” “She has some big date planned. A hotel stay then the lock-in. It’s a surprise and you know I hate surprises. MJ shaking her head. “That girl and her perfectionist ways.”“No MJ, I love the hopeless Romantic in her. It’s cute.” “Nope girl you just love you some her.”

The week speeds by but not without Riri and Shuri making it special for each other. Riri made sure her Dove had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich everyday, her favorite Starbucks drink, got her a new cologne, sent her flowers and a special woven blanket made for her to nap with. Shuri made sure her Princess was spoiled with her favorite flowers everyday, got her three new perfumes, and had her nails done twice when Riri didn’t like the first color. Then Shuri had a special leather briefcase and notebook made for her little brainiac.

It is Thursday evening now and Riri is packing with her music blasting. Sha comes into the room startling Riri. “Shit! Sha.” “Oop why are you cussing? I also love this outfit.” “You scared me Sha and thank you it's new. Shuri spoiled me for Valentine’s so far.” “Well what pray tell are you doing to spoil her?” Riri is always honest and up front with her sister so this conversation was bound to happen.

“I did the normal flowers, candy and this new cologne.” Riri huffs thinking about it. “That was for me. But I don’t know, maybe um we can finally.” Riri kind of trails off. Sex is non clinical to her. So she sometimes finds the words to speak about it hard to articulate. “You want to finally have sex? I am officially old. Sissy, that's a big step. Do you want advice or my opinion?” Riri lifts her head and looks at her sister with a pout.

“Both actually. It’s like a looming cloud for us. Up to this point she has been the one holding back. We have done…” Sharon glares at her sister intently. Riri stops before she shares too much. “We have done other things and I think the time may be right. Then I start overthinking, maybe it’s not.”

Sharon finally takes a breath. She gets up and starts to help her sister with her makeup. Random but it’s how she’s going to help. “Sissy you two are 18 year old seniors, it's not going to be what you see in the movies. So you have to go with the flow. Throw the idea of it being “perfect” out of your mind. You have to listen to yourself and Shuri. If tonight is it then it’s it. Be calm and don’t tense up. Also if you wear that little fenty set her head will explode.” Sharon looks at her sister all done with her makeup and almost tears up. Riri scrunches her face to a funny face.

“Sissy don’t cry please.” “I won’t but I just can’t believe how you have grown.” With everything packed Riri heads down her front stairs. When she makes it the front door bell rings . It’s Rohan to pick her up. She was instructed to wear comfy clothes for now. “Hello Miss Williams. Your presence is missed.” Ri loves Rohan; he's like an African Alfred. With a wave she hugs him quickly. “Hi Rohan don’t worry I will be home soon, she can’t be distracted.” After loading the last of her bags Rohan helps Riri into the car. “I am aware but she is up for hours restless without you. Before you ask, I am not at liberty to disclose tonight’s plan.”

The ride is quick to The W Hotel in downtown Chicago. With an escort Riri is taken to a huge suite. She opens the door to a beautifully decorated hotel room but not like the over done ones on YouTube couples do. The room is dimly lit with floor lights casting a deep red huge into the room. There are black heart shaped balloons floating on the ceiling and a rose petal heart on the floor. On the bed is a box and two bags. In the box is a gorgeous slim form fitted black dress. Its silhouette is cut higher at her left leg then on her right with a one shoulder neckline.

Riri readies herself and she was so thankful for her Sister doing her makeup. Riri opens the first bag with a pair of obsidian and diamond earrings for her to wear inside. The last bag has a letter and a pair of red bottoms. The letter reads. “Dear Princess, Solve the riddle and you will find the place to join me for our date. I visit you every night even if you don’t call me! I am lost everyday to you. What am I and where can you see me? Baby I love you and join me soon. Your Dove🤍” Riri racks her brain about the riddle. She smiles and pops out of the room to find Rohan.

“Ro take me to the Adler Planetarium!” Rohan grins ear to ear. “You are indeed a genius Miss Williams. Let us go.”

@somethingcleaverandwhitty @mal-urameshi @shuriris-stuff @neptoons1998 @dominiquesheart

[raisinchallah]

not vriska anon but i don’t want vriska to get lonely… terezi

First impression

i liked her instantly like her appearance is 100% what locked me into continuing reading like i enjoyed rose a lot but i had like no fucking clue what was happening most of the time but terezi was so funny and like perfect character designed in a lab for me i just became immediately invested again so i guess everyone can also blame her specifically if you wanna know why im talking about homestuck in 2023 lol

Impression now

i mean again she just like permanently altered my personality and impacted me in ways i can scarcely fathom what can even begin to sum it up.. in some ways perceiving her is like getting too close to a hot flame because its also like shes intimately tied into my entire teenage existence i literally made a bunch of friends in high school cuz i wore my silly little terezi shirt that terezi shirt directly lead to kissing a girl and my first relationship jkfld;dsk she has been there thru everything i still have that terezi shirt one of the old original what pumpkin ones not the we love fine pretenders to the throne etc

Favorite moment

[s] terezi remem8er!!!!!!!!!!!! i mean thats just one of my favorite parts of the comic in general and idk i lost my mind when it dropped felt like the perfect culmination of so many things around terezi and was just very moving for meee like later parts of the comic definitely very hit or miss but there were some things that felt like they did tie things up and like the fact the vriska game over terezi killed who had gone thru all these crazy changes was able to finally meet again with the terezi that literally rewrote the universe to see her again and had been so sad about never finding vriska in the dreambubbles and there at the end of the world the end of the comic they are finally reunited and getting to see bits of their past together as well aaaah and of course alpha terezis sad girl monologue leading into that truly meant the world to me

Idea for a story

not a story but i wanted to make a terezi and vriska no light no light lyricstuck for like 8 years now and it haunts me always

Unpopular opinion

god i have no idea what an unpopular terezi opinion would even be nowadays cuz like back in the day its like controversial take i dont believe terezi exists only to be the matchmaker or girl in the way of davekat or something but i dont think thats controversial or anything idk again i have stayed away from the fandom for so long at this point um idk i think people who ship her with dudes want her to be a manic pixie dream girl so bad

Favorite relationship

well duh vriska but as i have already explained so much about them in the vriska answer and s terezi remember etc i shall say that but also i do really like a lot of her conversations with dave i think its very interesting how both vriska and terezi idk allow themselves to be a bit more vulnerable with humans who dont care about their insane alien values and norms in a way they are afraid to be with each other and literally that fucking conversation where terezis like ok shut up ive listened to every single one of your sad boy problems my time to talk now with dave and talks about weighing her options about killing vriska while daves like still sitting next to bros dead body literally a conversation of all time i think

Favorite headcanon

oh god i dont even know i feel like i have not considered things like this in a long time idk... i am coming up blank

[courtney-deserved-better]

I've been wanting to get into writing a bit more and I adore your tdi fics, specifically slippery slopes. I'm curious about your writing process, since you've mentioned scripting out dialogue. I usually just scribble down 'ideas' and just go for it. Do you mind going a little more in depth. And don't worry about immediately responding. <3

i think writing out ideas and just going for it is a very important part of the process! i've been doing a lot of writing the past year (for fics and for my career) and as someone who used to strictly structure all of my stories, learning to let go of that and write what comes to me has been very important for improving my process.

that being said, having a balance of the two is very helpful. at my current state, i try to get a very rough sense of the arc of my story. it can be as simple as deciding (and this just a spontaneous example) i want to write a fic where courtney quits her job as a lawyer and becomes a famous musician who falls in love with gwen, who designs the art for her album covers. i start to ask myself questions about the specifics of the fic: why does courtney quit her job? who is she currently friends with? how does she meet gwen? and then i start to fill in those blanks with random ideas for scenes. dialogue is a part of the writing process that comes very naturally to me, so a conversation between courtney and gwen when they're reminiscing about total drama might pop into my head, and then i'd write it down in a simple script format.

one of the most important aspects for me, arguably more important than the specifics of the structure, is to know what story i want to tell. in the ridonculous race rewrite, i've changed the late-game elimination order of the show three times already, and because i know the general themes of the overarching story (friendship, trust, vulnerability despite past trauma), that fluidity has landed me with an unexpected ending that i think will work really well for the fic.

but, genuinely, the most important aspect of writing, what will help you improve the most, is to just write. and if you're already scribbling down ideas and going for it, then i think you're on the right path!

[madaboutmunson]

Devil Gate Drive

Free Space (Prompt B2 ) Summary: In which Eddie fixes a spooky campfire story that Steve mis told, sending them on a quest for a wish to be granted. Well, once, they get to Devil Gate Drive that is :)

Word Count:12196 @eddiemunsonbingo

AO3 Link ******************************************************************

One thing that is inevitable to happen around a campfire as darkness engulfs the people around it is storytelling. Some stories are to be nostalgic, some to open yourself up to others, but the most popular has to be those spooky stories. Ones to thrill and delight, specifically designed to be the perfect excuse to push wanting hands into holding or open waiting arms into protecting. But some of those tales aren’t just entire works of fiction. Some of those tales are rooted in some nutrient-weak soil of truth, but something keeps that myth alive by a sliver. So that keeps it crawling along and grazing its raw belly to reach a gathering such as this one. It simply needs to continue to be passed along until it can reach the correct listener at the correct time to bring it back to life.

And it is on a late summer night such as this that one such frayed yarn of a legend does just that.

“Welcome to Devil Gate Drive! The demon says as the gates lock behind them!” Dustin completed his story with an evil laugh. His shoulder slumped at the lack of reaction of the party.

A small round of applause emitted from Steve and Robin, but Dustin rolled his eyes and waved them away, folding his arms.

“It was a great story, Dustin!” Will offered kindly.

“Yes, very good. But not a surprise. I heard it before at another party,” El said with a small smile.

Max snorted out a laugh, which was music to everyone’s ears. Having been so long since they heard her express any kind of joy, “Wow! If even El has heard it before, imagine how many times the rest of us have heard it!”

Lucas nudged her in the ribs, which he immediately got flipped off for, “What she is trying to say is. It’s not you, it’s just an old story that gets told a lot. It’s scary the first time you hear it but after, not so much,” he consoled kindly.

“Last time, I ask for recommendations from you!” Dustin glared over at Steve.

“Hey! It’s a great story. Just because this bunch of dickheads don’t know how to appreciate a classic isn’t my fault,” Steve defended, eyeing the ground around the fire.

“I knew I should have stuck to my alien abduction story,” Dustin sulked and shuffled the toes of his sneakers into the dry dirt.

“You had sci-fi, and you let King Dufus-“ Mike started.

“Dingus,” Robin corrected him quickly and then waved him on to continue.

“King Dingus, change your mind to some ancient demon junk?” Mike shook his head, “That’s on you, man.”

“Oh, because your urban legend was so good,” Dustin made a face and teased him.

“Well, at least Will was scared of my story!” Mike barked back.

“Oh yeah. Terrified,” Will added unconvincingly.

Before Dustin could snap back, Nancy clapped her hands, “Well, before this pleasant evening descends into chaos, would anyone like a ride home?” Everyone except Steve and Dustin raised their hands. Steve frowned and lowered Robin’s hand for her. Nancy took out her keys, jingled them and walked to her car.

Robin immediately elbowed Steve in the ribs, “Ow, what was that for?”

“I’m ready to go home, dingus.”

“Yeah, and I’ll take you. Like I always do. You don’t need,” he carelessly waved a hand towards the group departing, “Nancy to do it.”

“Sounds like someone is a little jealous again,” Dustin muttered under his breath.

“Oh, Steve. Jealous? Colour me surprised,” Robin joked, gathering up their trash from around the dying fire, “Honestly, he’s probably just mad everyone didn't love that story so that at the end, he could say he told it to you.”

Steve folded his arms and frowned, “Ah, no, actually. I only told Dustin that story because his other one was lame, and also, what do I have to be jealous about? Nothing. If anyone is jealous around here, it's you two licence-lacking jerks!” 

Dustin shoved the half-empty Pringles cans into his backpack, “Steve, being jealous is one thing, but lying to your two best friends about it is just plain ridiculous. You were being jealous not two days ago and have been making snide comments about it ever since.”

“Jonathan again?” Robin tutted.

“No, actually, it's a new guy, and get this, it's not even Nancy-related.” Dustin chuckled as he gossiped with Robin, who stopped what she was doing and gave him her full attention.

“OK, that's enough. I am not jealous of anyone, not Jonathan, and certainly not some King of the nerds,” Steve laughed.

“Ah, so he admits it then,” Robin pointed a hand towards Steve and turned back to Dustin, “So who is this guy?”

“Oh, you know him,” Dustin smiled mischievously.

“I know a King of the Nerds? I thought that was you honestly, Dustin,” Robin laughed as Dustin mimed out proudly, putting a crown on his own head as she bowed to him, “Hmmm,” she pondered for a second before her eyes went wide with realisation, “Oh, no way! Really?” Robin made the devil horns symbol on her hand at Dustin.

“Really!” Dustin mirrored her actions in reply but stuck his tongue out simultaneously.

“Now, why would Steve be jealous of him?”

“I’m not jealous, ok!” Steve finally exploded, “If anything, he’s doing me a favour keeping you little shitbirds occupied at least one day a week!” Steve said, kicking and chucking things around while he searched the area, “Now, where is that stupid water bottle I told you to keep ready in case of emergencies? Hmmm? In case we needed it? Probably buried under a mountain of shit for easy access, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, I’m not getting a molecule of jealousy coming off you right now, Steve. Not at all. Not one bit,” Dustin said dryly.

“Oh wow. He really is jealous,” Robin started laughing so hard she nearly fell off the stump.

“You know what? I don't even know why I’m friends with you, absolute assholes. You use me like a personal taxi and-and agony aunt service. Then, all the help I give is thrown back in my face. From now on, you can forget it!” Steve said, finally finding the water and failing to unscrew the top on the first try, making Dustin join in with Robin’s laughter.

“Oh, that's right. Laugh it up, you little dorks. And you know something else. My story is a classic! The reason they didn't go for it is because you are an awful storyteller, and you missed out the best part.” Steve said, marching over to Dustin, thrusting the water bottle at Robin to take it from him and open it.

The fire hissed behind them with a metallic jingle and the sound of a zipper in the new darkness they had been plunged into. Steve turned himself to shield Dustin and threw an arm in front of Robin as he hoisted the water bottle high over his head. 

Their eyes frantically searched the darkness to no avail, but they were still adjusting. There is a snap of a twig, and all their heads snap toward it. Then, as a unit, they back up as much as possible.

“He’s right, you know,” came a low voice from the inky blackness, “You missed the best part,” a small flame illuminates a slender face surrounded by dark waves of hair. The flame goes out, and all that is left in its place is the pulsing glow of the end of a cigarette, “You’re supposed to tell them that the entrance can be found right here in Hawkins.”

The three of them relaxed a little, knowing it was just a human and not some demo-creature, but after what happened to some of the town earlier this summer, Steve was still on guard, “Get lost, creep!” he shouted towards the occasional glow but received an elbow in the side. As he turned to complain, he was blinded by the light of Dustin’s headtorch. Once he backed off to save his eyes, the beam of light turned to illuminate the guy who had been talking.

Tall, lanky-looking, all tough fabrics and edges, other than his big eyes and hair. A new idol for at least three of the party to worship the ground of. This was Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson.

“Eddie!” Dustin all but squealed at him as the man covered his eyes with his forearm.

Dustin quickly scrambled his way up higher and provided Eddie with his own spotlight, which made them both grin wildly.

Robin waved a hand in greeting, “Buckley, nice to see you out of uniform,” he chuckled with a nod, and his eyes moved to Steve, who looked like an overwhelmed and unimpressed Mother. His hands on his hips, and his tongue licking his teeth in seething annoyance behind tight lips.

Eddie dropped his head to the side, “Aww, not happy to see me, Harrington?”

Steve narrowed his eyes, “You think urinating on a fire is impressive?” He cleared his throat and looked up at Dustin, but his headlight stayed fixated on Eddie. Steve tensed his jaw and continued, “All you’ve done is filled the air with piss molecules or whatever now. So congratulations, I guess!” Robin quickly covers her mouth with her jacket

Eddie pouted as he began to circle Steve at a slow pace that Dustin’s headlight followed, “Was just trying to help you out, big boy, no need to get so uptight,” the last overly enunciated T he bit into the air between them, and then continues to walk around and observing him.

“I had it under control, thank you. You didn’t even get it all,” Steve complained as he walked over with the water bottle, masking his face with his jacket before pouring the water on the remaining embers.

Eddie wrapped his arms around himself and looked at the ground with a barely repressed smile, ”Duly noted, Harrington. Duly noted.” Eddie seemed to concede as his eyes watched Steve from under his hair.

“I don’t think that last bit would have saved the story, to be honest. They’ve all heard that story before. I probably could have shown them a creepy gate entrance, and they wouldn’t have been even remotely scared,” Dustin complained.

Eddie slowly tore his eyes from the grumbling man at the extinguished fire, “You sure about that, Henderson? It looked pretty damn creepy to me!”

“Wait. It’s real?” A newly intrigued Dustin.

“It’s just a set of random old gates in the woods,” an entirely-over-it Steve interrupted as he kicked more dirt over the fire.

“As real as I am stood before you,” Eddie followed up with an answer of his own.

“Oh my god, can we go see them?” Dustin scrambled down from the stump, excitedly rushing over to Eddie, who reached out and dimmed the head torch down a setting.

An exasperated Steve returned to the group, shaking his head with a laugh, “There is nothing to see unless one of your new hellfound hobbies is gross old gates?”

“D’awww,” Eddie gushed like a kitten had just pawed at him, “he really is jealous of lil’ ol’ me, isn’t he? It’s Hellfire, by the way. H-E-L-L-F-”

If looks could kill, there would have been a crater where Eddie had stood, “OK, last time I go over this. I’m not jealous of you, your stupid little board game club that is mostly math and playing pretend, what ugly bands you are into, or what laws you break daily!” Turning his eyes to Dustin next, he says, “It is literally a set of gates. You can walk right around them. Whatever they guarded is long gone. I’ve been there a bunch of times. It’s stupid.” Steve said condescendingly.

“If it’s so dumb, why did you go there more than once, huh?” Dustin fired back.

An amused smile graced Eddie’s face, “Yeah, why might that be, Harrington?” 

“Yeah, that does seem a little strange, even for you,” Robin said from inside her jacket, which was zipped up over her nose.

Steve mumbled something as he avoided eye contact with the others and kicked at the ground.

Eddie cupped his hand to his ear, “What was that now? Didn’t quite catch it,” he grinned.

“I said because it’s, um, a great make-out spot,” Robin made some grossed-out noises, and Dustin simply sighed. But Eddie continued to wait, seemingly unconvinced by this reply.

“Yeah, because some creepy old gates sound so romantic,” A disgusted Robin replied.

“Hey, it’s foolproof, okay. Everyone knows being a little scared works! That’s why people go on dates to scary movies, not romantic ones,” Steve defended.

“Sound logic. It’d work on me,” Eddie shrugged, shoved his hands in his pockets, and took a few long strides between the two very confused older teens, “So what you are saying, Harrington, is the first time you went there was to make-out with someone and not because of the other part of the story you missed out?”

“Wait, what is the second part of the story?” Dustin asked eagerly, the beam of his headtorch finally leaving Eddie and falling onto Steve.

“It’s not a second part! It's why the couple went to the gates in the first place, and I didn't miss it. It just makes it sound more fairytale than scary campfire story.” Steve corrected matter-of-factly, “How long exactly were you spying on us?”

“Long enough,” Eddie winked at him.

“What is wrong with you?” A perplexed Steve shook his head at the metalhead.

“So you just missed out the original motive for the couple and replaced it with they just stumbled upon it one night walking in the woods?”  Dustin gestures pointedly at the trees surrounding them.

Eddie clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth on his heels, trying very hard to hide the satisfied grin that threatened to break out across his face and send Steve right over the edge.

“Yeah, well, it's certainly more scary than a wish being granted! That's like Aladdin or some little girl’s story.”

“HEY!” Robin complained, and Steve’s face immediately apologised for him, “You know what, maybe we should hear the alternate version and decide, huh? Eddie, if you wouldn’t mind?” Robin sent a scowl at Steve and an equally threatening forced smile at Eddie.

A slight growl escapes Steve, and Eddie claps his hands and rubs them together, “So Harrington almost nailed it, except for in the original story, our pair of high school sweethearts aren’t the perfect match they seem to be, well at least not to their parents. He’s a low-down dirty punk, and she’s a sweet as cherry pie girl next door. They hear that they'll be granted one wish if they make it to Devil Gate Drive, but it will come at a price.” Eddie shrugged one shoulder, “But what price wouldn’t our lovebirds pay for one another to live happily ever after? No price is too high, right?” He spun on his heel and wielded a wicked grin an inch from Robin’s face, making her jump back in fright, “Right?” He says with an evil chuckle.

“So their wish doesn’t get granted?” Dustin asked a slight nervousness in his voice now.

“Oh no. They get their wish exactly as they asked for it. They get to be together forever, and no one can ever tear them apart. Just like they asked,” Eddie smiled over at Dustin.

“So, what's the problem? Happily ever after, right?” Robin asked, pulling Eddie’s focus back to her.

“Well, they had to pay the price, and that may have dampened the forever they were tied into just a little,” Eddie says with a smirk.

“Oh no, did one of them have to die? Or-or become a hideous monster?” Robin guessed as Eddie smiled happily at the listener's engagement and pumped his eyebrows at Steve, who simply rolled his eyes and checked his nails in response as Eddie turned back to his captivated audience. 

“No, something much more simple than that. Just a kiss,” Eddie says simply.

“Is that it?” Dustin throws his hands up, “They kiss one another and get their wish?”

“Not one another, doofus! It's a price they have to pay to someone else,” An irked Steve interjected.

“Still, it's just one kiss, and they get to be all happily together forever. That's easy,” Dustin scoffed.

“Yeah, well, when two people are in love, they shouldn’t be thinking about kissing anyone else! Not for any reason,” Steve snarled, raising Eddie’s eyebrows.

“And now we get to the reason why the story was altered,” Robin gestured both hands towards Steve with a nod.

“No, not that at all,” Steve protested as Dustin and Robin continued to nod knowingly at one another, “And can we not talk about this in front of a stranger!”

Eddie’s surprised expression melted to something compassionate, “In Harrington’s defence, the story does get quite dark from there on. Maybe he thought it might be a little too much for young, impressionable minds to handle. So he wisely gave you the PG remake,” he looked over at Steve, “Right, Harrington?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Steve said with a glance at Eddie and a mumbled thanks.

“So what happens? We can handle it,” Dustin asked quickly. Eddie looked over at Steve again, who shrugged and waved a hand carelessly in front of himself.

“Well,” Eddie began, “The couple decide that it’s worth the price of one kiss. So they go to the gates and approach the demon with their wish to be together forever, and no one would ever be able to tear them apart. He asks who will pay the price, and our little rebel-without-a-cause gent, repulsed by the thought of seeing his girl kiss anyone that wasn’t him, offers to do it himself.” Eddie crouched down to get on the level with his seated audience, “He kisses the demon, and they are free to leave Devil Gate Drive. They return home, their parents accept them, just as they asked, they get married, they get their little picket white fence house, and from the outside, everything looks peaches and cream,” Eddie’s smile grew wolfish, “But behind those doors, a coldness had slowly been eating away at the warmth of their love little by little gradually for years. The Demon’s kiss haunted the man. He would kiss his love, but it was never the same. The spark would attempt to flicker into existence but would quickly fizzle out, and though he tried hard to play his part, she could tell there was something wrong, and she too longed for something else, until finally their love gave out and was no more.”

“What so the end of the story is they just break up? That is a kind of lame ending,” Robin looked disappointed.

Eddie cackled, “Oh no, nothing as easy as a break-up. They could fight and holler all they wanted, but every time one of them tried to leave, suitcase packed, storming out the door,  they’d get to that white picket gate, aaaand,” Eddie clicked his fingers with a sharp snap, “They ended up right back in their little home, all the things they packed unpacked. Trying to make a break for it from work? Nope! Zapped straight back home. Trying to romance someone else? No way! You get the picture.”

“Oh, that is truly evil!” Robin shuddered.

“Well, that's what they get for trusting a demon,” Steve scoffed.

Eddie stood up from his crouched position and opened his mouth, about to say something, when Dustin spoke up, “It’s not the demon’s fault they made a stupid wish without thinking about it. Everyone knows you have to be specific in your wishes. They should have said something like, We wish to be happily in love with one another forever, and no one can tear us apart, and we’ll be together forever. Then, the unhappiness part couldn’t have happened. It’s easy.”

Robin raised an eyebrow at Dustin, who made a face to indicate the idea she just had had also landed in his brain, as they both looked at Steve in unison.

“No! Absolutely not, no way!” he said with as much authority as he could muster and waved his hands in an X shape in front of himself, “Eddie, tell them it's just a set of old gates, and it's too late to be creeping around the woods in the dark looking for them.”

“Well, they aren’t deep in the woods or anything,” Eddie laughed, speaking to Robin and Dustin, but stopped abruptly when his eyes met Steve’s, “but it is late, I guess.” Eddie twisted his rings around his fingers, saying, “I could be willing to tell you what happened last time I went there if, and only if, Steve tells me why he went back a second time,”

“Fine!” Steve said, grabbing Eddie by the shoulder and leading him away from the others. Once out of earshot, he pulled him closer and, in a hushed voice, reprimanded him, “What the hell are you doing? We don't want to encourage them. I’m trying to deter them. You know it's weird out there!”

“Is it? You tell me,” Eddie responded quietly with a smirk.

“Ok, ok. The first time I heard the story, the next day I snuck out to find them, but it was just a set of gates, there was nothing on either side,” Steve shifted nervously from one to the other, “I was just a kid, ok? I believed in that shit, like an idiot,” Eddie looked at him and softly shook his head but stayed silent for him to continue, “So I tried cleaning them. I thought maybe all the ivy and stuff was in the way,” suddenly Steve found himself lost in his memory, of those iron gates embraced in stone that nature was desperately trying to claim back as its own, “And then…I think….I thought…” Steve's words drifted off as did his gaze until Eddie's ringed hand reached up, turned him back to face him, and looked him directly in the eyes.

“And then what happened?” Eddie asked quietly, dropping his hands slowly back to his side.

Steve looked over him, “And then I thought I saw a spark right where the gate lock is, but the next time I came back, it didn't happen, or any of the other times I came back again.”

Eddie’s eyes widened, “A trick of the light, maybe?”

“Yeah, yeah, and we absolutely do not tell those two any of that, okay? I need you to back me up out there. Hawkins is full of weird shit. I don’t want to be chasing after them in the dark, for eaten up by a-” Steve stopped himself quickly, “A ditch, or something.”

“Sure, man. I’d love to help you, but I can’t,” Eddie said awkwardly.

“What do you mean you can’t? You said if I told you-” Steve complained, but Eddie cut him off by softly grabbing his jaw and turning his head to the vacant tree stumps and missing backpacks.

“I can’t help you because our audience seems to have left!”

“Well, at least they can’t have got far or know where the gates are,” Steve says, pushing Eddie’s hand away and quickly gathering his backpack.

“Sure they do!”

“How could they know where they are. I didn't tell them, neither did you, and everyone else thinks it's just a stor….” Steve’s face dropped from condescension to horror, “Oh fuck, the directions are in the story. SHIT!” Steve went from sitting to sprinting faster than he ever had done in track at school before he stopped dead, turned around and shouted back at Eddie, “Hey, are you gonna help me or not?”

“No can do, Harrington, Saturday night is big business for me, got people to see, you know?” He heard Eddie shout back but could no longer see him. Steve huffed and busied himself, trying to remember the story’s directions by the beam of his torch alone.

Dustin and Robin stood before the gate as a glow emitted at the centre of the padlock. Robin instinctively put her arm in front of Dustin, who pushed it away, and the glow folded in on itself to a singular speck of light and disappeared into nothing.

“Goddamn it! What the hell happened that time?” Dustin complained and sat on the floor, resting his head in his hands.

“I don’t know! I don't know!” Robin exclaimed, her hands in her hair, “But I definitely saw it that time. I can’t believe Steve knew about this and didn’t tell us!”

“I know, right? Now that we know that all this upside-down business comes from the lab, we could wish it away. We could have no town deaths, and nothing bad would have happened to Will. I bet we could even throw in Billy not being a complete asshole and, most importantly, that Eleven got the help and friends he needed rather than getting experimented on.”

“Yes, yes! Exactly, we could save everyone, right? The story didn't say how long the wish had to be. It just had to be one wish, right?”

“Riiight,” Dustin said slowly and clapped his hands together, “I know why it didn't work just now,” he said with a big smile.

“Why?”

“Because when you threw your arm out, I thought, ‘I wish people would stop treating me like a kid.’ Maybe the wish has to be unanimous or something. Like the couple in the story, they both wanted exactly the same thing, and the gates opened for them!”

“You genius child!” Robin rushed over and grabbed him by the shoulders, making him giggle. Their laughter became interrupted by the approaching sound of wooden things clanging and knocking against one another. They both gripped one another tightly in fright until the torch light came into view, stopped and was angled up to reveal the shadowed face of a less than-amused Steve Harrington.

“What are you idiots doing out here? Are you both insane?” He hissed quietly when he got close enough.

Robin thumps him first on the arm, “Ow!” Steve frowned, rubbing his arm in complaint.

“How could you hold out on us like this?” She scolded as Dustin threw his own punch on Steve’s other arm with a laugh, which he quickly turned into the frown he was supposed to be wearing.

“I wasn’t holding out anything. One, it doesn't work, and two, after everything we’ve been through the last two years, do you really want to be wandering into some weird gate thing?” Steve gestured at the gates, and as he looked, he saw they seemed to have not changed at all, not since that fateful summer day when he was out here on his own, with only his radio for company.

Two plain iron wrought estate gates were held shut tight by a thick knotted chain and an ancient padlock delicately embossed with filigree. The top and bottom of the gates, absent of post caps, glinted like the sharpened edges of daggers, ready to shred anyone who tried to crawl under or over them. The moss-covered stone pillars that flank them, the hinges embedded in their sides, still stood, a weathered gargoyle on each. 

“Look, we just thought we could undo all the bad stuff that happened, bring back Barb, protect Will and Eleven,” Robin explained, and Dustin gave her a little nudge in the side, “E-Even makes Billy a nice guy, so Max is safe too, and you won't get knocked out. Besides, whatever is beyond that gate is no match for us, not with you along with us.”

Steve looked at their hopeful faces and groaned but tried one last thing, “You heard what Eddie said about wishes. If you aren’t specific, they can be turned against you. This all just could be a trap, so just,” he looks between the two of them, “just let me go first ok? Stay behind me, and if anything goes wrong, anything at all. You run, lock the gates behind you and don't come back, understand?”

“As long as you promise that if you get separated, and you get to make a wish, you stick to the same one, so you can get out too. Deal?”Dustin looked at him with all seriousness, “No Martyr crap.”

“Deal,” Steve said, swallowing hard, “Here,” He reached behind his back and pulled two wooden baseball bats out of his bag and handed them one each, “Just in case.” Steve pulled out a third for himself, his old trusty nail bat. “Ok, let's give it a try.”

Robin and Dustin filled Steve in on the exact wish they had planned out. They stood before the gates, bats braced over their shoulders, ready to swing at anything that came their way. Steve was the first in line.

The padlock began to glow, and the gate hinges creaked as the leaves of the gate moved back and forth, trying to free themselves from their restraints. The rattling echoed through the woods, and suddenly, the glow condensed to a singular orb of light that gently floated to one of the pillars and disappeared beneath the ivy and moss covering it. And with that, the gates creaked back into their normal position. Unmoving and unopened.

Robin rushed toward where the orb had landed. She hurriedly brushed away the plants to get to what was underneath a square brass plaque. She scrambled quickly for her torch and used the light to reveal the inscription.

“Five,” a confused Robin reported back.

“Five what?” The boys replied in harmony, only to be met with a shrug as their eyes followed the light beam to the shining plaque, which looked almost brand new other than the number five that seemed hastily hammered into it.

“Maybe we need two more people?” Steve questioned.

“No, the story had a couple pass through, and when it was just me and Robin, it almost opened too!”

“Maybe it’s….er…” Robin tapped on the gates five times, and when nothing happened, she tried the stone and then the gargoyles, but nothing happened.

She stepped back next to Dustin, who was also busy looking around the gates for anything they might have missed. Then, suddenly, the plaque started to glow.

“Whoa, whoa, what did you do,” Dustin exclaimed, looking Robin over.

“Nothing, nothing! Did you?” Dustin shook his head in reply as they both slowly turned their heads to the shuffling sound behind them.

Steve was doing half of some kind of dance. One hand in the air in front of him as he twisted his heels from right to left into the dirt, quickly stepped around with a twist of his hips, and kicked his leg out to the front and across himself with a triple step, humming something.

“What are you doing? We’re trying to figure out a puzzle here, and you’re what? Dancing?” Robin complained, and Steve stopped dead and looked a little embarrassed.

Dustin tugged on Robin’s jacket, “No look,” The plaque had stopped glowing, as Steve had stopped dancing.

She quickly turned back to him, “Wait, explain to me why you were dancing.”

“Because of the song,” Steve said, looking a little weirded out. He looked at the two blank faces in front of him, “Ok, wow! It's not even that old! The lyrics to the song say, at the age of five they can do the jive down at Devil Gate Drive’, so I tried to remember some jive moves that my Nonna taught me.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Do it again!” Dustin all but yelled, gesturing to Steve’s feet.

“Well, you don't normally do that dance on your own. I mean, you can, but it's usually danced with someone else,” Steve muttered awkwardly and extended his hand toward Robin.

“I am not co-ordinated enough for dancing,” Robin held her hands up with a laugh.

Steve moved his extended hand to Dustin, who sighed but took it all the same.

“Ok, just hold my hands and copy my feet at first, and then if I put our hands up like this,” He hoisted their joined hands together above Dustin’s head, “Just follow the moment of the spin, ok.”

After a few stumbles and an argument about which way he should turn to spin, they got into a pattern of sorts, “It’s working, guys! It’s working. Keep going”

Steve and Dustin, with huge smiles on their faces from having much more fun than they should have, pick up speed.

The glowing plaque creaked and cracked as the glow seemed to warp it until the plaque pieces and padlock finally dropped to the floor. A breathless Steve and Dustin stopped their dance, and as their eyes met, “We tell no one of this, understood?” Dustin said.

“OK, sure. But you should know, you’re pretty good. I wasn’t expecting you to be, but you clearly have some kind of natural rhythm,” Steve complimented his friend.

“Really? You think? Maybe it was because I had such an able leader to follow?” Dustin gushed back, but before Steve could fire back another kind word, Robin made them aware of the new situation.

“Guys, I hate to break up this bonding session, but um, the plaque did fall away, but, um, there is just a new one where it was,”

“Are you fucking, kidding me with this shit right now!” Dustin seethed, “Six, ok, Steve. Is there a line about being six?”

“Yeah, it's, um, something like, ‘they get their kicks’, I think,” Steve wracked his brain trying to remember.

Before he could even hum the line a second time to himself, there was a loud clang as Robin kicked hard at the chain holding the gates together, followed by a dull thud of the chain hitting the ground. 

“Man, she is awesome!” Dustin grinned up at Steve.

Robin smiled over at them and stepped back in their first formation as the gates slowly creaked open all by themselves, but what could be seen through them was certainly not the forest that they had not seconds ago been able to see through them. 

Steve carefully stepped forward, his bat ready to swing as he took in the new scene before him. A cold room lined with walls of grey stone, broken up occasionally by some hideously violent scenes depicted in stained glass. The scent of incense and snuffed-out candles fills the air, and directly opposite them is a giant set of solid wooden doors with rusted metal hinges.

“Are we absolutely sure about this?” Steve asked one last time.

“A chance to undo all this shit? To save all those people, to help Will? Yeah, I am one hundred per cent certain. We can all have our old lives back.” Dustin enthused, and that was all Steve needed to get him to step through the gates, but once inside, he found the place completely deserted.

He stayed quiet, hoping to hear the faint rustling of some foe or beastie, but all he could hear was the soft hum of electricity. He shrugged at the other two and walked toward the giant doors opposite. An unusual sensation bristled over him the closer he got to the doors, and it intensified as he reached out his hand.

“STEVE! DO NOT TOUCH THAT!” Dustin squeaked out, and Steve stopped in his tracks as the other two rushed towards him, Robin holding up a handheld mirror and giggling. As he stared into it, he saw his usually voluminous hair standing on end above his head.

“It must be electrified somehow. Hold on. There look!” Steve and Robin followed Dustin’s finger as it traced along the wall following a chunky cable and finally came to rest over a set of three switches, “Anything in your song about things being on or off?” Dustin asked, rushing over to the knife switches on the wall, each sticking out halfway, neither on nor off.

Robin joined Dustin at the switches, but Steve busied himself elsewhere at a table, frantically scribbling and smoothing down his hair.

“Geez, these look straight out of Frankenstein or something. If we pull them all down, that will turn off the power?” Robin said, full of awe, dusting the cobwebs from them and proceeding to flick the webs from her fingers back into the room behind her.

“Well, that sounds like a good first try,” They both got to task pulling the switches into the down position. There is a change in the hum, but when Dustin finds a random nail on the ground and throws it towards the door, a small zap of electricity lights up around the projectile.

“Up?” Dustin questioned, and they pushed all the switches in the opposite direction. Robin tosses something towards it this time, but the same thing happens.

“Well, there are only a certain number of combinations. We can just try them all,” Dustin shrugged happily as Steve shoved a piece of paper in front of them.

“There, those are the lyrics I remember. They’ve helped so far. Maybe if you had them too, I figured that might be quicker?” Steve said, but his eyes were looking over the switches, “So where are we at with these Dracula switches?”

“Frankenstein,” Dustin corrected.

“Yeah, well, whatever,” Steve waved his hand.

“It’s alive!” Robin said suddenly

“Ok, ok, I get it. I mixed up my movies, you guys, geez, priorities!” Steve shook his head, looking up at the switches.

“No, Dingus. The lyrics ‘Come Alive’ twice. Like, it's connected, right. So the first two on and the third one off?” She reached up and pulled the third switch down, 

The hum of electricity died, and for good measure, another metal scrap got hurtled toward the door. This time, it happily bumped against them and dropped to the floor, unfrazzled.

Robin passed the hastily scribbled lyrics to Dustin, who read them over as they moved in the usual formation in front of the doors, which Steve carefully opened as quietly as possible, but the creaking of the doors might have woken up everyone in a ten-mile radius if it hadn’t been for the fact, that none of the people in the vicinity would be waking up any time soon.

The cool night air whooshed through the open doors and hit them full force, making them stumble backwards. Once finding their feet again, they realised they had been in a chapel or church of some kind because at the foot of the stairs out of the building appeared to be a graveyard, split apart by a gravel path that led to another set of gates. On them, something flashed occasionally with light.

“Eyes open, keep close, bats ready, try to move like a ninja. Something doesn’t feel right out here,” Steve whispered quietly.

Steve took the first step down and was treated to a thunk on the back of his head. He whipped his head around only to find a very apologetic-looking Robin, “Sorry, guess that was too close.” She whispered back with a smile.

They continued down the steps and path, careful in their movement and silent as the grave until they reached the next set of gates.

What had been glinting in the moonlight was a beaten-by-the-elements mirror attached to a piece of rope that held the two tall metal gates together.

“What is this like a light thing?” Robin grumbled, angling the mirror around, trying to capture a beam of moonlight to move around the graveyard. Dustin took the lyrics out of his pocket and reread them whilst Steve covered their backs, his head moving from left to right to cover both sides of the path.

“Maybe it's to do with stars, that's right there at the top?” Dustin poked the paper and held it up for Robin.

“No, it can’t be. So far, it's been in order, right? And we just did that chorus-type bit, so we must be on the second verse now.” 

“You know, being scared aside, this has been kinda fun. It’s like an adventure, you know, but less blood and guts and more puzzles, which is preferable when you are very much in the game itself,” Dustin says with a chuckle.

“You know what, yeah, this has been fun, like before all hell broke loose at the mall, and we were figuring out that message.” Robin fondly recalled moving around the mirror and checking the back of it, “Except, of course, this is much easier.”

Dustin made a pained noise, “Why would you say something like that?”

“I’m just stating the facts. Reading song lyrics is not as difficult as translating Russian.”

The ground shook, not enough to knock them down, but enough to have them scrambling for the lyrics again, searching for mirrors, reflections, or anything related to that.

“Uh, guys. How you doing with that gate?” Steve’s voice wavered.

“Nothing yet, but we’re trying to find something to do with mirrors,” Robin said, a little flustered.

“Well, let me help you out there. There isn’t any, so I suggest you try out any other ideas you’ve got because we’ve got company.”

“Company?” Dustin laughed, turning around, only to be greeted by a shambling figure approaching in the distance, groaning, “Shit!” He said shortly and turned back to the mirror.

“Wha-what is- shit!” Robin exclaimed, picking up her bat again, “I’m gonna cover Steve. You’ve got this, buddy!”

Dustin tucked away the lyrics in his pocket and held the mirror in both hands, examining it, holding it at different angles in the light. He even tried cleaning it on his t-shirt, but nothing happened. He took out his torch and shone it directly on the mirror in the hopes that it would illuminate a clue somewhere around them, but what it did instead was light up more of the graveyard and alert the two older teens that it wasn’t just one member of the undead they would have to deal with. The stench in the air and the hands clawing out of gravesites around them made it clear that soon they might be overrun.

“Come on, Henderson. You got this!” Steve coached as he braced himself, ready to swing at the approaching figure.

Bolstered by his hero’s words, Dustin focused back on the mirror, “Come on, there must be something here,” he whispered to himself.

“Uh, Dustin, trying anything would be good at this point,” Robin’s concerned voice increased in volume, followed by the swish of a bat in the air.

“Shit-shit-shit, ok. OK! Maybe I’m overthinking this,” Dustin frantically looked over the gate, and his eyes landed on the rope tying them together. He quickly spun his backpack around himself and rustled in the pockets before finding his Swiss army knife. He flicked out one of the blades and sliced easily through the rope. He tutted at how easy that had been and pushed the now untethered gates, but the gates pushed back and held firm.

“What in the-,” Dustin said slack-jawed as he pushed on the gates one more time with all his might, but the same thing happened.

Behind him, he heard the swishing of bats, “Stay back, you putrid asshole!” Robin shouted.

A grunt from Steve, and there is another swish and a clatter of bones. Dustin’s heart pumped so hard he could hear his pulse in his ears, blocking out the sounds of battle behind him. Frustrated, he held up the mirror and yelled into it with a face of fury, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?”

The mirror flew out of his hands so quickly as the gates threw themselves open, “Guys, it's open!” He yells.

“Ok, now listen,” Steve struggles to say with another sound of something rushing through the air, which ends with a clatter and the sound of dry heaving, “Listen,” Steve tried again as he spat on the floor, “Don’t turn back just look ahead, what can you see?”

“It's just, er fields, there is a broken cart, more path and a set of gates with a box in front of it.” Dustin managed but was desperate to take a look behind him. He was trying his very best to just do what he could until they were all safe.

This time, another loud whack filled the air with a squelch and the sounds of Robin coughing and spluttering.

“Ok, that’s good, that's good,” Steve said unsteadily, “I want you to find something to bar the gates, anything, a piece of wood, a rock, the broken cart, anything you can move, then bring it back and shout for me. Got it?”

“Got it,” Dustin confirmed and ran to find the chunkiest piece of broken cart he could find and dragged it back to near the gates, “Ok I got something,” he shouted, with his back pressed up against the wall, head looking directly away from the gates until he hears them slam shut and the wood is wrenched from his hands.

He opens his eyes and can see Robin backed up against the gates as Steve heaves the piece of wood into place. They both looked disgusting, covered in various coloured congealed liquids, intermittently heaving and spitting on the floor, catching their breath. Steve caught him looking over and rushed to him with a big smile on his face as he shook him by the shoulder, “You did so good, dude, So fucking good!”

“I did?”

“You really did!” Steve beamed proudly with a sniff and wiped his nose and mouth with his sleeve.

“Steve, can we save the proud parent routine until we are out of scent radius of these things, please?” Robin warned them.

Steve grabbed Dustin’s shoulder and forced him to walk in front, “Eyes ahead, ok, Henderson? Pick up the pace a little, alright?”

Robin ran ahead of them, and soon their quick walk migrated to almost a jog, “What was back there?” Dustin asked breathlessly.

“Um, you know zombies in the movies?”

“Yeah”

“Well, let's just say those are the My Little Pony version of the real thing.”

“You guys dealt with them easily enough,” Dustin said with a small smile of adoration. He aimed at Robin and then up at Steve.

“Er, well, we dealt with enough to get out of there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen, let's save this conversation until we are somewhere much more structurally sound.” Steve looked back, gripped the shoulder of Dustin's jacket, and dragged him along into a run.

Dustin kept his eyes front and saw that the box was not ordinary. The glow from it illuminated Robin's face as she stooped over it, poking it, turning to the gates, and then back to the box.

The box in question was a very particular kind. This was a classic Wurlitzer 2000 jukebox that Robin was flipping through the songs of and pushing its buttons, getting increasingly more stressed, “It’s not Devil Gate Drive, It’s not any songs by Suzi Quatro. Then I tried some songs I liked because I’m the only girl here. I’m just going through the female artists now, trying to figure out who the jukebox queen is,”

There is a crunch and the squeak of the old gates opening again. Frantically, Robin bangs her fists on the jukebox glass, “Come on, what is it?”

Steve hurriedly hip-bumps her out of the way, flicks through the pages and punches in the number. The record arm moves and picks up the record, the gates to their right click open, and the music rings out across the landscape.

Caaaaaaan 

anybody 

find me 

somebody to 

Love?

As they barreled through the gates, they slammed shut behind them. Steve pushed them along until the nature around them began to melt away. Tree stumps started to be replaced by spare tyres, hills by piles of abandoned cars of eras gone by until there was an audible pop behind them, and as they turned, the gates they had just run through vanished. Turning around again, they can see couples to their left and right, just as bewildered as they were, looking around, holding one another tight.

“Queen! Of course!” Robin rejoiced a little more relaxed, though not by much, “But how did you guess the song?”

“Lucky, I guess,” Steve said, urging them forward towards a pounding beat they could all hear. As the piles of scrapped cars and trucks piled higher and higher, almost as tall as buildings, they pressed on until the view in front of them stopped them.

A pit bigger than the Quarry in Hawkins spread below them. This one, however, was barren of water but full of people, specifically couples of all eras and ethnicities, dancing together, huge smiles on their faces that didn't budge as they twisted, jived, waltzed, tangoed, and discoed around the place. Huge bonfires littered the area, making incredible waves of heat flow up and over them almost rhythmically. Above it all, on a rocky outcrop, a creature sat on a gigantic gilded throne at odds with the kingdom of trash and scrap surrounding it.

From that distance, it couldn't possibly be human-sized, closer to giant than anything. Two pointed, warped and twisted double-pronged horns on its head, the bases of which were smothered by hundreds of serpents moving over one another. Its large eyes were aflame as it surveyed the entertainment below, and its evil grin was fanged. Its upper body was bare, showing off the deep red of its toned, branded and scarred torso. From the belt of shackles around its hips and downward was a fur of the deepest black that ended in two large cloven hooves.

And just as Steve had managed to digest what must be the demon before him, the creature snapped its head towards him. He felt it looked right at him, but that must be impossible with the thousands of people here, this far away. Steve stumbled back with fright all the same as the demon threw back its head and unleashed a loud, wicked booming laugh that echoed around them, and the dancing creatures of the pit mimicked it with their own reedy cackles.

“Yep. Yeah. This was a horrible idea. We should just find a way out,” Steve said worriedly as he backed up slowly from sight of the pit but soon found himself coming to an abrupt stop. He turned to see his two friends looking back at him.

“The way back is gone, you saw it disappear the same as we did, and we’ve come this far, Steve. If we can’t go back, we may as well go forward.” Robin soothed and gestured over his shoulder.

“Robin’s right. And this is our chance. This is our one chance to make everything right.” Dustin agreed, holding his hands together like he was in prayer.

“You want to try and have a conversation with that thing?” Steve exclaimed, looking and pointing over his shoulder at the monstrosity that had now stood up to its full height from its throne, “You think that thing is gonna give a crap about Will, Barb, or Hawkins. No! It's gonna take one look at us and eat us like a snack, OK. That thing cannot be reasoned with. Look at it!” Steve protested urgently as a creeping sensation moved up his spine, “We haven't even looked for a way out. There could be hundreds. It's just how we came in is gone, right guys?” He looked for agreement from his friends, but all he saw was the colour drain from their faces, and their eyes travelled up as they were quickly overcast with shadow.

“Your hairy friend is correct, little morsels,” An impossibly warped and deep voice came from above Steve’s head, “There is a way out, but there is but one way to get there.” The demon clicked its deep red fingers tipped with black nails with grain and knots like wood. All four of them found themselves in a room with black rock walls, a hearth to simmering lava that folded over itself, and the remainder of the room contained giant-sized furniture made of silver, draped in black worn sheer fabrics, depicting strange animals and bones, “To make your wish,” The creature says sitting on another throne-like chair at the end of a long table, as it steepled its fingers together, “I trust you have one?”

Steve quickly gathered Robin and Dustin behind him, “Don’t hurt them. It’s my stupid fault we’re here. Let them go home.”

The demon leaned forward and raised its furry jet-black eyebrow to a sharpened point, “Is that your wish? For two of you to go home and one to stay? Strange if you ask me, but it is not my wish to make.”

“No!” Dustin shouted defiantly, “That isn’t our wish!”

“Ah, I see, it is not unanimous. Well, take your time. I have plenty of that. You three, however, not so much,” it smiled impossibly wide, as a few snakes that adorned its head slithered forward to taste the air between them, “but again, that really is more of a you problem, isn't it?”

“Tell me little bird,” It pointed a sharpened nail at Robin, “You are desperately quiet. Do I frighten you?”

“Ye-Ye-Yes,” She barely managed, shaking and clinging onto Steve simultaneously, almost pulling him back with her.

“Ah,” It grinned, “Finally, an honest one among you.” The snakes on its head began to uncoil from around the horns and fall down to and spill over its shoulders, “Is this better?” It asks but stops suddenly, “Ah, I remind you of someone, do I not? HA! Oh, she’s clever, isn’t she,” It laughed loud like bark and clapped its hands together, “I guess the jig is up. So be it!”

Almost like running water over a watercolour painting, this creature began to melt into something new, something they recognised, someone they recognised. Eddie Munson.

Instinctively, Steve lurched forward to attack. Now, the enemy was more his size, but Robin and Dustin held him back.

“Ah-ah-ah, big boy. Don’t be fooled by appearances in this place,” his smile quickly fades to something all the more sinister, “I could still have your insides for dipping sauce with a wave of my hand.” Steve, still vibrating with rage, forced himself to step back.

“Why did you-” Dustin began, but he was quickly cut off.

“Why did I suddenly appear in your lives, befriend you and infiltrate your little party? Well, now that would be spoilers, wouldn’t it? Suffice to say you have access to something I want, and though I have tried my best to get it, my duties here keep me from getting too far. I shall speak no further on the matter, and the feeling I’m getting about your wish, in particular, is that you want to go right back where it started anyway. And that works for me. There is one problem, however,” Eddie puts his hands to the sides of his face in a cutesy way, “The wish still has to be unanimous,”

“It is unanimous. We all want the same thing. Steve just panicked, is all,” Dustin quickly answered. Steve nodded.

“And on top of that wish, that we all get home unharmed, and you keep your evil ways away from all of us!” Robin added with gusto.

“Interesting.” Deep in thought, stroking his chin, he says, “You see me as evil and terrible and scary, and yet, I have been nothing but benevolent. You know, technically. The three of you shouldn't even be allowed in here, a group of three, without a droplet of lust or anything but platonic love on you. That doesn't cut the mustard here, not for me, not for my superiors. We dine on love’s young dream here. So, I bent the rules. I made it a test. A little loophole, if you will, and you two seemed so desperate to get through the gates, and I know how much you would each love a moment in the spotlight, congratulated by your peers, your friends, to be strong, to be intelligent, to be wise.” He got up from his seat and paced around the table, “I even gave you a challenge when you were getting bored of my little games, and then when you got here, I didn't chuck you directly in the pit before discussing your wish. And you have the gaul to stand before me, ungrateful and petulant.”

“You did all of that?” Dustin choked out.

Eddie nodded with a tuneful hum, “Yes. And Steve here has been so desperate to breach my gates for so long. He’s been graciously passing around my legend for nearly a decade now. Isn’t that right, champ?”

Now the colour drained from Steve’s face, his mouth opened to say something, but the words would not come.

“Stories spread like wildfire in the mouths of the young, but more importantly, so does belief. That is why I had to intervene when I heard Steven here twisting my tale. I was disappointed, to say the least. He’s normally so good at the exact details. Sweethearts just end up here without even thinking about it.” He beamed a toothy grin at them, as Steve could barely process the information, “But as I said, this wish is not unanimous. It hasn't been since you got to my gates, and frankly, it is getting a little repetitive saying as much. So, though you are here, you cannot leave. So, I suggest you all try to get on the same page. Do try and hurry along. I mean, I literally have all the time in the world, but I do get bored terribly easily. Especially when I’m not getting all the attention,” he sighed and headed back to his chair, kicking his legs over one of the arms and drumming his nails on the other.

“Wait, if all those people came with the same wish, then why are so many people still here?” Dustin asked.

“Oh, Dustin, you clearly didn't hear the message of the whole story! These sweethearts come here, head full of forevers, and then when they stand where you are, they state their wish. I ask for my price, and they remember the story's ending, don't they? So, being the soft-hearted fiend I am, I make them an offer. They can pay the price, have their wish, take their chances out there, or they can stay here, no price to pay, and stay as in love as they are at that moment, forever.”

“You-you tricked them,” Steve stammered furiously.

“Did I, now?” Eddie lurched forward with a sneer, thumping the table, “Or did I give them a choice? A CHOICE THEY MADE!” Eddie bellowed furiously before quickly shrinking back into a smirk, “Take a look again if you wish, Steve. There isn't a sad face in the house other than you three ingrates. I tire of this. Make your wish. Don’t make your wish. It’s all the same to me, my sweets.”

“If we don’t have lust or romantic love, what is the use in keeping us here? You could just send us home, and we’ll be sure to tell everyone your story properly,” Robin used all the charm she could, and it earned her a side glance.

“Gosh, you are clever, aren't you, birdie,” He swung his feet to the floor and paced over to them, looked each of them over, “That is because you have something far more valuable than mere love. The absolute worst thing you can be in any realm. One of you is…” he made a come hither motion with his finger, which none of them were drawn in by, and yet he still smiled as he breathed out with a gasp of ecstasy, “A traitor.”

The three friends burst into a cacophony of accusations, all being thrown at Eddie.

“That’s impossible. We’re best friends. We’d never betray one another!” Steve shouted adamantly before turning to Dustin and Robin, “He’s just trying to make us turn against one another. Don't listen to him. Just decide the wish, and let's get out of here.”

“MMM mmm mmm, descension is my favourite amuse bouche,” Eddie smiled and licked his lips as he leaned against the table on the heels of his hands.

“Wait!” Dustin shouted suddenly, “Wait! Shut up!” He squeezed his eyes shut with the shout before focusing again on Eddie and holding up three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, “Three! Any other mysteries of the world you wish me to unravel,” he laughed.

“A-ha!” Dustin smiles smugly, “And what t-shirt was I wearing the first day we met?”

Eddie’s face soured, “A "Weird Al" Yankovic t-shirt!” The grimace on his face tightened his lips like he was fighting against them opening.

“Dustin, what are you doing, man?” Steve whispered, pulling him back into the huddle with him and Robin.

“Only busy trying to find a way out of external dancing damnation!” Dustin replied as insulted as possible.

“What? Have you lost your mind?” Steve stressed as he grabbed Dustin and shook him by the shoulders.

“Yeah we need to finalise this wish, the Eddie stuff we will unpack later I promise,” Robin firmly pointed out.

“Listen, you’re both missing the point. I just figured out two things just now. One, That thing has to answer our questions. Two, the answers to those questions cannot be lies. Maybe he can’t lie at all, I don’t know, but anything we ask he can’t lie about.”

“What does this have to do with our wish?” Robin complained.

“That means one of us is lying about wanting this wish. I’m not saying either of you is a traitor, and maybe you have your reasons, but this is our chance to undo everything. Please reconsider.” Dustin pleaded with the older teens.

“Look, we all want that wish to come true. Not one of us wants to have anything bad to have happened to anyone else.” Robin put her foot down, “He’s clearly just trying to over-exaggerate something like Steve not wanting us to come to the gate in the first place. He’s just twisting it. Pitting us against one another,” Steve nodded at her in agreement.

Dustin and Robin looked at one another for a few seconds, and both turned to Steve simultaneously, “It’s you!” Robin gasped as she clasped her hand over her own mouth.

Steve felt his heart race, looking between the two closest friends he ever had. They didn't understand. Yes, it was terrible what happened to everyone, and Steve did want to undo everything, but there was something much more potent at play here. He raised his hands in surrender, and with a cracking voice, he yelled, “Please stop this. I’ll make your deal!”

There was a snap of fingers, and Dustin and Robin, mid-shot at Steve, were frozen in time.

“You know I am really contorting the rules for you now, Steve. The rule is the wish is unanimous,” Eddie purred as he circled Steve with a leisurely stroll, his hands clasped in front of him, not merely adorned with Eddie’s rings but so many others.

“It will be if the other two people can’t think or speak. It only has to be me,” Steve sniffed as he dropped his head in shame.

Eddie’s finger hooked under his chin to raise it, “My, my,” he tilted his head with a soft, adoring look, “He’s smarter than he looks, and let on.”

“It's not smart. It's sneaky!” Steve frowned with a tear threatened at his waterline as he snatched his head away from Eddie’s hand.

Eddie placed his hands over his heart, “Truly, you wound me so profoundly, my beauty. To turn away from the man who has done nothing but your bidding for years now.”

Steve’s eyes turned from sadness to surprise as Eddie continued, “Tonight, I hid your secret until I could no longer. I have my binds, as do we all. But from the moment you sat crossed-legged at my gates, sobbing your eyes out as Freddie Mercury begged me on your behalf for someone to love, did I not give you that in spades.”

“No, you did not!” Steve yelled, “Stop lying! You did no such thing!”

“I DID!” Eddie yelled right in his face, his voice boomed so loudly the room shook, and debris fell crumbled from between the stones to the floor, as Steve turned his face away, “I gave you everything I could. Did your parents not shower you with money and gifts? Did you not suddenly have the eye of most of the people in your school? Did you not become adored by your peers? Did you not become king of your tiny realm?” Eddie gesticulates wildly around the room as he bellows his efforts. He then drops to something quieter, his fanged teeth clenched and his fingers pinched to deliver the final blow, “Did I not find you the woman of your dreams and place her in your very path. In arms reach?”

“Well, you failed,” Steve pinched his nose, holding back his emotions as best he could, “None of them loved me,”

Eddie raised his chin and deeply breathed, “That is not what you asked of me.”

“You can’t love one way. That's not how that works! It’s just another, uh, trick of yours,” Steve waved his hand away as if brushing the past from his mind.

“I gave you what you asked, you had people to love, and as a cherry on top, you had people that worshipped you,”

“But it wasn’t real. It was all bullshit. What I needed back then I found without your help! Robin and-and Dustin, they care about me. They love me!” Steve stepped forward, brandishing his words like a weapon against his foe.

A growl rumbled from Eddie, “You don’t need these kids, Steve. I can give you anything you wish, just as I always have!”

“I do need them.”

“No, you don't!”

“I do. I need them to love me. Without them, I’m nothing,” and that pushed him over the edge. As his tears fell, they hissed and spit as they hit the stone floor beneath him, “And now, because of how selfish I am for it, I will have lost them.”

“YOU DON'T NEED THEM!” Eddie roared, his eyes glowing a deep red as his chest heaved.

“And what of the love I give, hmmm? The love I have given? Always will give. Is that not enough to sate you?” Eddie's eyes ignited. The hellish flames danced in them with jealousy and pure rage. Steve, lost for words, wiped the tears from his eyes. Half horrified and half in disbelief. “You think a creature, such as I, is incapable of such complexities as love. Well, you are wrong! Is a street sweeper not as capable of love as a poet? Can a peasant not woo a prince?” Eddie’s eyes searched Steve’s, his frustrated voice dropping to a whisper, “Can a demon not love the very soul of an earth angel?”

“If you love me, you’ll let us go,” Steve angrily answered back.

Eddie narrowed his eyes, pointing accusingly at Steve, “Is that what you do to things you love, Steve? Do you let them go? Or do you cling on secretly, desperately, until they drop you like a bad habit?”

Steve looked at his friends and back to Eddie, “I’m ready to make my wish.”

Eddie’s eyes bored into Steve’s, his nostrils flared in anger as he pressed his lips together tightly before taking a deep breath, “Very well. Hand over your prized trinket.” he sneered.

Steve frantically patted himself over, “I don’t have a trinket. Whatever that means.”

“What, you're two best buddies who love you so very much, never gave you anything you hold dear?” Eddie snipped.

Steve looked over at his friends again, remembering their times together, side by side in battle, sitting battered and drugged on a toilet floor, getting ready for prom, and that was when the idea came to him. He turned back to Eddie, reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys.

Eddie snatched at them menacingly, holding them up. The flames in his eyes flickered green as he held them in his grasp before pocketing them, “And your wish?” he seethed through gritted teeth.

“I wish to rewind everything to earlier tonight at the campfire, where all my friends and family were safe, and that I never told Dustin or anyone else I care about that story.”

“That's all?” Eddie raised an eyebrow in disbelief, “Not riches, not saving everyone, not throwing me into the abyss?”

“Yes, that’s all.” Steve blinked down at the floor and hung his head ashamed.

“Your wish is my command,” Eddie smirks as he saunters to Steve to claim his prize.

As their lips touched, Steve’s mind went blank. 

All he could feel was a sharp pain in his ribs.

“Hey, Dingus! Wake up. It’s nearly over,” Robin whispered with a huff of a laugh.

“Oh shit. Are you ok? Is Dustin…DUSTIN?! DUSTIN!” Steve called out frantically, only to be met with the annoyed, narrowed eyes of Dustin Henderson to his right at the side of the campfire.

“Is it too much to ask, to have a moment in the spotlight, just once?” Dustin grumbled.

Steve looked around at the others with an awkward smile, “Ha, uh, Sorry guys, real vivid dream.” He sat closer to Robin and took her hand in his as they listened to the rest of Dustin’s alien abduction story.

“Hey, are you alright?” Robin asked as Steve looked around the fire. He bit his lip as his eyes fell over Will, El, Max, and Nancy. The guilt swished heavily in his guts. It was just a dream, he tells himself.

Soon enough, they are packing up. Nancy offered a ride home, and Steve didn't stop Robin from going.

“Hey, looks like it's just the two of us, buddy!” Steve happily pulled Dustin in for a one-armed side hug.

“What is with you tonight?” Dustin laughed, shrugging him off.

“Nothing, nothing, just you know. It was a nice night.” Steve hummed pleasantly as he easily found the water bottle to put out the fire's dying embers and collected up his backpack as he and Dustin walked back down to the car.

By the time they reached the car park, Nancy is still parked in her spot, her hands over her ears as everyone else is arguing over who should sit where.

“Bet you’re glad you stuck with me, huh?” Steve chuckled and nudged Dustin in the ribs.

“No matter what happens down there. No matter who bats their eyelashes at you, I get shotgun!” Dustin said with the utmost seriousness.

“Of course, Absolutely,” Steve beamed as they approached the chaos. 

Dustin threw an arm in front of him, which he almost barreled over, “Are you high? Did you eat like a special brownie or something? Is that why you fell asleep, and since you woke up, you’ve been acting like you fell right out of a Disney musical?”

“No, man. Is it ok for me to be happy for once?” Steve laughed, reaching into his pocket for his keys, “Shit!” he dumped his bag on the ground and started fishing out his torch, only to be blinded by a set of headlights.

A silhouette moved into the beam after a door slam, “Need a ride, Henderson?”

“Eddie!” Dustin beamed excitedly, and Steve grabbed his arm to hold him back, but he just got a frown and shoved for his effort.

Steve’s eyes made contact with Eddie’s. Dream or not, this guy was still a stranger to him. To his surprise, Eddie swallowed nervously as he approached.

“Maybe? Steve here lost his keys somewhere between here and up there.” Dustin gestured into the dark woods.

“Oh really?” With a delighted grin, Eddie said, “Not like Harrington to make a mistake, is it?”

“You’d be surprised!” Dustin laughed, but Eddie’s eyes didn’t leave Steve’s.

“Is there a problem, guys?” Nancy called over as people were finally taking their seats, and Dustin ran over to explain.

Eddie stepped closer, and Steve braced himself for something terrible, but all he felt was him take his hand, “Well, looks like it must be opposite day today, huh, Harrington? Today I get to be the saviour,” his smiled morphed to a smirk as he pressed the keys into Steve’s palm, and began stepping backwards towards his van.

Steve tried to shake it off quickly and held the keys up, “Found ‘em,” He called out before getting into his car and starting it up. Dustin promptly jumped into the passenger seat as Nancy pulled away, and Steve followed swiftly after her, not wanting to stay there any longer than he had to, still shaken and weirded out. 

Steve looked in the rearview mirror at the figure leaning against the van as they got to the exit. 

Eddie shifted, raised his hand to his mouth, and blew him a kiss.

[naffeclipse]

Chapter 11 has been devoured just like the heart of that mothman! (sidenote: when I saw the cw for heart eating my first thought was that they probably really enjoyed this one XD)

Ahh, y/n really was a mess in this one from letting Sun get hurt. Their confidence is dwindling a lot lately as they're so desperate to prove themselves strong. I can't help but think it comes from being alone for so long, since now they have a connection to someone that they are so afraid to lose and it's a bit hard for them to really see how solid that relationship has come along. The hunter does not seem to realize they are still putting a lot of what they have learned to be as a cryptid hunter that only needs to appear professional to other people. Of course they are very caring! But it seems showing weakness is something they have learned to avoid at all costs, whether with the people they interacted with and never saw again, or with their cryptid targets.

Every time that it has happened so far has weighted on them as a failure, even though they strive to believe that they can be scared and still be brave. But it's always been 'scared when no one else can see', and 'brave when they (ususally the monsters) can' . Now they have an onlooker and it's terrifying to them! They are placing themself in a trial where the hunter is the only judge! And boy are they judging! Sun and Moon are right to be concerned about them not taking their own injuries as seriously and reminding them that they are not dragging the DA in this, but rather that they are choosing to follow y/n willingly.

Good thing they have ways to be distracting heh >:3

As for the hunt itself that was so tense! We have that soft moment at the start where y/n is trying not to show themself as too vulnerable even though they are sharing how the demonic encounter changed their life forever. And then we had that very horror game like moment with the enemy so, so close, with light and sound being the worst enemies for survival. The fact that the lightning was disorienting to the Mothman was so cool, and the atmosphere was just excellent. I loved the great show of trust with Moon accepting turning off his optics and just letting y/n take the lead because of their skilled observation as a hunter! Like hey there is a hungry monster right outside (that endangers you), but I'll blind myself because I trust you! Chef kiss! And ooooh, the point blank shot was so cool!! And the detail with the light of the eyes fading along with the lightning!!! I loved that!

And omg it's so funny y/n decided to screw with them one last time with the boyfriend thing fdksljgh But it's even funnier to me that Sun and Moon just boldly flirt with them and make suggestive jokes about them taking their clothes off but the moment y/n sort of implies " you are more my type" Moon immediately is like "f-for realsies? uwu" What a dork XD

This is getting super long so I'll just add a couple more observations! So first F.E.I wants to control cryptids hmmmmmmmmm!! My first thought was how in Pizzeria Simulator Henry designed Lefty specifically to trap the possessed Marionette to manage to bring it somewhere hmmmmm. Got my eyes on that for sure!

Then we have Vanessa! Oh god, I wonder what she's been trying to hint at. Or if it's even her at more lucid moments. Because come to think of it, if the demon has possessed her, I wonder if it could look into her mind and know she knows y/n. And could be trying to attract them subtly through worry to be able to get them finally. The prey that got away. (Or maybe a more suitable vessel?)

Ahhh, things are coming together! I hope y/n is able to help Vanessa, and that maybe the boys start seeing her as less of a nuisance now that they know how loyal a friend she has been to y/n in the past XD Speaking of which, that reminds me of the vow! For a second there they were in a tight spot haha. I just imagine them discussing in their head frantically about what to say fkdjhgjkh and then y/n gives them an out and they are like "we shall be like the fae and word things very carefully" pffff. Now they can keep thei vow without revealing themselves and hold y/n to theirs!

Though I do wonder: can they really demand a vow to be upheld when the one making it upon request did so under deceitful circumstances? Especially if they find out?

Very excited to find out~

Hi, babe! ♥

Oh ho, Sun/Moon enjoyed eating this heart very much hehe

A lot of stress is building for Y/N and naturally, they strive to protect. Failing to do that, especially with their dear friend, broke their little heart ;-; Y/N is attempting to do everything all at once, but ah, neglecting their own health? Nope. Sun/Moon will not allow that!

Ahhhhahha thank you so much! Writing that action was a bit tough but I finally got it to the point where I was happy with it ♥ I'm so happy you enjoyed it!

ALJSFDA The boys aren't prepared for the script to be flipped so they're just all big heart eyes and caught off guard ♥ ♥ ♥

Good. Keep an eye on that F.E.I. and Vanessa stuff hehe

Sun and Moon in their head when Y/N asks for them to make a vow like that special order scene in Ratouttile but it's them growing increasingly panicked about the vow and what to tell Y/N!

"What did we tell them?"

"We told them we would make a vow!"

Good question hehe, hopefully, we'll find out soon ♥

Ahhhh, thank you so much for reading!!! I enjoy your comments so much! ♥